The Stratford Police Department is rallying around one of its own who needs the gift of life.

Detective Jennifer Murolo has spent 17 years with her hometown department.

“She is literally one of my best detectives in the bureau,” said Capt. Jerry Pinto.

Murolo, 39, is known for her skills, hard work and dedication, along with being the first to step up when a fellow officer is in need, according to Pinto. She’s also an animal advocate.

“She's at the top of her game,” Pinto told News 12.

But Murolo’s health isn't, which her work family was stunned to learn.

“Her sister had posted online on Facebook that Jen was in dire need of a kidney transplant. I had no idea,” Pinto recalled. “I was really taken aback by the news and so were the chiefs.”

It turned out Murolo never let on that she suffers from polycystic kidney disease, a hereditary disease that causes one’s kidneys to eventually stop working. Last year, things got worse.

“With her current level of kidney function, she'd be considered appropriate to transplant immediately. The situation is always a little more dire than it appears on the surface,” explained Dr. Willian Asch, a nephrologist on Murolo’s team at Yale New Haven Health.

Murolo is on the kidney transplant waiting list there.

“There are about 105,000 people in the United States listed for a kidney transplant. About 27,000 transplants are done a year. And at Yale, we have about 600 people listed on our kidney transplant waiting list,” stated Kara Ventura, Clinical Program Director for Transplants at YNHH.

Moving to the top of that list takes time.

“We're—in this part of the country—waiting somewhere between 5 ½ and 8 years,” Asch told News 12, adding that that’s for a deceased donor transplant.

YNNH does about 120 kidney transplants a year, with 30% involving a living donor.

“You can live a perfectly long, functional life with a single kidney,” Asch explained.

Asch said a living donor transplant is optimum, in part because it can happen in just a couple months. Time is of the essence for Murolo who’s hoping to avoid dialysis.

“Even beyond that, the kidney will work more immediately from a living donor. It will function better at the beginning. It will last longer,” Asch said.

So Stratford police will host an organ donor screening event with YNHH staff on Tuesday, Jan. 21. It’s a chance for people in the community to learn about organ donation and ask questions.

“Then, if they'd like, they could also do a screening with one of our nurses to see if they're eligible to come in for an evaluation,” Ventura said.

The screening consists of going over the person’s medical history and takes about ten minutes, according to Ventura. She said some common myths about organ donation are that a donor has to be related to the recipient, know the recipient or have the same blood type.

Asch told News 12 that blood types just need to be compatible, but even if they’re not, there’s the potential for a “paired exchange,” where kidneys can be crisscrossed to make donation possible for more than one family.

He said the biggest thing for potential donors to know is that the process takes time and involves lots of testing beforehand.

“We typically have the expectation they are amongst the super healthy, people we believe have an effectively zero chance of developing kidney disease themselves, so that we feel comfortable allowing them to go forward,” Asch explained, adding that the costs are all covered by the recipient’s medical insurance.

The hope is the police department's event leads to a living kidney donor for Murolo but also maybe a transplant for someone else in need.

“She's being stoic about it, but she knows we're all here, and we're trying to help her just like she'd do for us,” Pinto said.

The event will be held Jan. 21 at the PAL building next to the police department from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.