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‘Success Kid’ uses Internet fame to help his dad find kidney donor

Success kid

Sammy Griner’s dad needs a kidney transplant. His family is hoping his Internet fame will help him find one.

Sammy, now 8, rose to Internet stardom in 2010 when a 2007 photo of him, then 11 months old, was turned into the “Success Kid” meme.

“I just wanted this perfect shot of him sitting there but he kept grabbing fistfuls of sand, and at that age, everything goes in their mouth,” Sammy’s mother, Laney, told TODAY.com. “So it looks like, ‘Yes, victory!’ but it’s actually a baby eating sand.”

Last week, Sammy’s family launched a fundraising page, hoping to find a donor for 39-year-old Justin — also known as #SuccessDad — and pay for any transplant costs.

To date, the Jacksonville, Florida, family has raised more than $83,000.

“We are just floored by the reaction,” Laney, told BuzzFeed News. “I know Success Kid is a popular meme, but around here he’s just our 8-year-old son, Sam. It’s amazing seeing what broad, worldwide appeal his image has, even so many years later.”

Justin suffered kidney failure in 2009 and has been on dialysis ever since.

Before being eligible for the transplant list, he must first undergo much-needed dental work and prove that he can afford the transplant’s anti-rejection medications. (The costs of dialysis and the transplant are covered by Medicare, but additional medications, which Justin will have to take for life, can cost up to thousands of dollars a month.)

“One can only survive with no natural kidney function and using article kidney filtering for so long,” Laney told the Daily Dot in an email. “His energy and mood are affected, he can no longer work, and he spends 12 hours a week in dialysis clinic. Having been on dialysis for this long greatly increases his risks of developing further complications. The only way to save his life is to get a transplant. There’s no other way around that.”

Friends and family have tried to help, but none have been a match so far. So the Griners are hoping that the same people who embraced their son’s photo years ago will be willing to step up and help.

“At first, I didn’t want to use Success Kid because I wanted the focus to be on Justin,” Laney told TODAY.com. “But most people who know us know our son is Success Kid, and so people started talking about it. I realized that this could be a really positive thing.”

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

How does Sammy feel about using his famous baby photo to help his dad?

“He’s been this meme for as long as he can remember,” Laney said. “But he gets embarrassed by it plenty, too.”

But, she added, “His dad is his hero. He’d happily do anything to help him get better.”