2024 is already promising to be a year of bright new beginnings for David Hannah.
On Tuesday, Jan. 2, he was sworn into office as Wrens’ first African American mayor. That very night the city’s civic chamber was packed full of citizens attending his first official council meeting in the new role.
Then five days later, on Sunday, Jan, 7, around 1 a.m. Hannah’s phone rang.
“Mr. Hannah we have good news,” he remembers the voice saying. “We may have a kidney for you.”
“I thought I was dreaming,” Hannah said. “I have been waiting for this for so long and I knew I couldn’t miss this opportunity.”
For eight years, the last four of which he served on the Wrens City Council, he has gotten up at 4 a.m. three days a week and spent more than half the day getting dialysis treatments in Augusta. Getting the news that he had a matching donor and then receiving his new kidney, Hannah says it changes everything.
“I can really concentrate on the city now,” Hannah said from a chair in his brother’s home Wednesay, Jan. 17, the day he returned home from the surgery. “Before I left I had Sen. Raphael Warnock call to congratulate me and talk about what we need, and I told him.”