Donations Pour in to Save ‘Success Kid’ Dad’s Life

Sammy Griner, the boy behind the “Success Kid” meme, is helping his dad Justin Griner raise funds for a kidney transplant. (Photo: GoFundMe)

The resolute-faced baby behind the popular “Success Kid” meme — Sammy Griner, now an 8-year-old boy — has been able to put his Internet fame to good use this week through a crowd-sourcing campaign, which aims to find and fund a kidney transplant for his dad. Thanks to the beloved meme, the GoFundMe page, created by Sammy’s mom Laney Robertson Griner less than a week ago, has already raised more than $83,000 toward that goal.

“It’s just all been really amazing,” Laney told ABC News. “It never stops being weird, and it never stops being awesome.“

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Justin Griner, a 39-year-old tattoo artist in Jacksonville, Florida, has known he’s had failing kidneys since before Sammy was born. He spends about four hours a day, three days a week on dialysis, according to ABC News. "Six years on dialysis is getting to be a long time,” Laney, who could not be reached by Yahoo Parenting, told ABC. “It’s wearing on him. … I just want to get him healthy.” Once a suitable living donor is found, Medicare will cover 80 percent of the post-surgery costs, but the family will have to come up with about $12,000 in the first year — and that’s just for prescription drugs, which Justin may need for the rest of his life.

The photo that launched the “Success Kid” meme. (Photo: Laney Robertson Griner)

But now their focus is on finding Justin a living donor, which tends to bring better survival rates and quicker functionality than a kidney from a deceased donor. But finding a match is not the simplest task: According to the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network, 101,581 other Americans are currently awaiting kidney transplants.

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Laney took the original fist-raising baby photo of Sammy at the beach (he was about to eat a handful of sand) when he was 11 months old, in 2007. She put it on Flicker and from there it went bonkers, becoming an “I Hate Sandcastles” meme before morphing into “Success Kid” and then leading to commercial uses for products from Vitamin Water to Virgin Mobile in the UK. She said she was at first reluctant about leaning on her son’s image when it came to fundraising for her husband’s medical expenses, but has been grateful for it making the campaign successful.

The Griner family. (Photo: Facebook)

“By now, it’s just out there. What am I going to do? At least it’s positive,” she told ABC about the meme. “Without that happening, how much could I get this recognition about my husband’s kidney transplant?”

The comments left on Justin’s GoFundMe page were overwhelmingly supportive, with many offering up their kidneys on the spot, and others pointing out how lucky the family is to have the built-in familiarity online. “If you hadn’t taken a picture of your son and posted it to the Internet so many years ago, no telling how well this would have gone,” wrote one well wisher. “I’m so glad that God works in mysterious ways. I pray that everything will go well for your family.”

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