WEST CHESTER — A local police chief was honored by the Chester County Fraternal Order of Police last week for a selfless donation made quietly earlier this year.

Joseph Gleason, chief of the West Goshen Police Department, donated a kidney to a woman he had never met on May 1. On Dec. 19 he was presented with the county FOP’s Humanitarian of the Year award for changing the life of Megan Comerford, a 35-year-old mother of three from Decatur, Ill.

The process began in August 2011 when Gleason’s wife received an e-mail from the couple’s niece. The message explained that a complex kidney condition was affecting the woman’s sister, who was undergoing dialysis treatments and in need of a transplant.