The cure for blood cancer is in YOUR HANDS.
Give A Spit is a project and a high school club that recruits spit donors to help people diagnosed with leukemia and other diseases. In addition, we also fundraise to support the Be The Match organization and their blood cancer patients.
Leukemia, which is a cancer of the blood, kills more children each year than any other disease. People with leukemia receive a bone marrow transplant which is a life-saving treatment. These patients undergo chemotherapy and sometimes radiation to destroy their diseased marrow.
However, chemotherapy and radiation may cause other cells to get destroyed, so after treatment, patients are weak and on the verge of dying. Therefore, a donor’s healthy blood-forming cells are given directly into the patient’s bloodstream, where they can begin to function and multiply to save the patient. Doctors can test the blood and tissue type, just by looking at your DNA from your saliva from your cheek swabs, to match it with the patient’s.
For a patient’s body to accept these healthy cells, the patient needs a donor who is a close match. Seventy percent of patients do not have a donor in their family and depend on the Be The Match Registry to find an unrelated donor. Thus, 12,000 patients per year whose only hope for a cure is a transplant from someone outside their family. Yet, 10,000 patients still can’t find a match, even though there is around 10.5 million people on the bone marrow registry!
You could be a potential match!
Give A Spit was created to continue DoSomething.com‘s campaign, Give A Spit About Cancer. We have teamed up with the national bone marrow registry Be The Match (bethematch.org) to spread awareness and swab the donors’ cheeks.
Our goal is to encourage people ages 18-24 to sign up with the bone marrow registry. Ages 18-44 is accepted, while ages 45-60 is accepted but not “needed”. This is based on medical research that shows younger donors are best for patients and provide the greatest chance for transplant success. Because of this, doctors request donors in the 18 to 44 age group over 90% of the time. We would like to have at least 250 donors recruited by the end of the year!
Donors at any event have to sign health forms and should bring a drivers license or passport as an ID.
Amity Regional High School-Give A Spit
Club Advisor: Mrs. Barnych
Note: The project is headed by Lillian Zhang. This blog is intended to spread awareness, fundraise for BTM, and recruit donors.
© Lillian Zhang and Give A Spit, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Lillian Zhang and Give A Spit with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Give A Spit 