Christine Buell former student, Kelvin Sanders, III.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — This isn’t just the celebration of a new year, but an opportunity to celebrate the generosity of the season.

The Washington Post reports Christine Buell, 45, and Kelvin Sanders III, 20, went into surgery Tuesday after the mother of two decided to donate one of her kidneys to Sanders, who is battling renal kidney disease. Buell, Sanders’ former teacher-now-vice principal at Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory School in San Francisco, says she found out about Sanders’ health problems on Facebook. While browsing the social site, she saw a post from Sanders’ family looking for a donor.      After he started dialysis, several other family members and friends signed up to donate their kidneys, but were not a match. Buell underwent months of testing and found out she was the one.

The surgery was scheduled to happen before the holidays at The University of California-San Francisco (UCSF), but after a donor died following their surgery, it was changed to another hospital.

UCSF has suspended kidney surgeries until they determined what happened in the fatal surgery.

Sanders’ mother was frightened to hear about the tragedy and feared Buell would back out, but she didn’t.