The UA Hillel Foundation will hold its first ever bone marrow donor registration drive Wednesday and for some organizers, this event will have a more personal meaning.
Lily Wool, a family studies and human development senior said she was inspired to help organize the drive when her mother died from leukemia.
Wool’s mother was first diagnosed in June 2008. She underwent chemotherapy and radiation treatments, but that can only go so far, Wool said.
After failing to find a bone marrow match in the family, Wool’s mother was put on the waiting list. A match was found and Wool’s mother received the transplant in early October 2008 but her body rejected the transplant and she died.
“My mom’s main goal was to see her daughters grow up and she wasn’t able to see that,” Wool said. “So if I have any chance to prevent that from happening and someone else’s mom doesn’t have to pass, then I am going to keep doing whatever I need to do.”
The bone marrow donor registration drive is held through the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation, which, according to its website, is a “world leader facilitating transplants for children and adults suffering from many life-threatening diseases, among them leukemia and lymphoma.” The drive will be held on the UA Mall tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., according to Jenna Langert, a junior studying business economics and Hebrew and co-organizer for the drive.
Donors must be between the ages of 18 and 60. There will be a medical screening questionnaire that attendees must fill out and then they will have four saliva samples swabbed from inside their mouth, Lagert said. Those with diabetes and asthma, among other specific health conditions, will not be allowed to donate, according to Langert.
If attendees are not eligible to donate because of pre-existing health conditions, they can still make a monetary donation on Wednesday as well.
“We believe students should participate because it is a great opportunity to do a good deed and in Hebrew we call that a ‘mitzvah,’” said Naomi Schuster, The Hillel Foundation director of Jewish student life. “To be able to help others, to help save a life, is the highest mitzvah you can do in Judaism.”
