By Alex Kimura, Director of Sharing America’s Marrow
LOUISVILLE, KY – Austin Peay State University students and the Clarksville community will have the opportunity to join the bone marrow donor registry and potentially save the life of a patient fighting blood cancer on January 20 in the Morgan University Center Lobby.
Sharing America’s Marrow, a grassroots movement to register 50,000 donors in 2015, is coming through Clarksville as the first stop on a yearlong quest around the country.
Sharing America’s Marrow (SAM) is a nonprofit campaign started by sisters Alex and Sam Kimura along with their friend Taylor Shorten. In collaboration with the donor center Delete Blood Cancer, SAM hopes to dispel myths about bone marrow donation, educate the public on the importance of registration and sign up as many potential bone marrow donors as possible. Sam Kimura, 22, is fighting a rare bone marrow failure disease called severe aplastic anemia, and has yet to find a donor for the transplant that she needs to be cured.
SAM is traveling to all 50 states, with the hopes of finding a donor for Kimura and the thousands of other patients fighting blood cancer and other diseases. Because young people are the ideal donors for bone marrow transplant, the SAM team is focusing their efforts on college campuses across the country. APSU is the first school out of over 100 that the SAM team will visit in 2015.
To register, participants can stop by the Morgan University Center Lobby from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. on January 20. Potential donors must be between the ages of 18 and 55, in general good health and willing to donate to any patient in need. Signing up is easy and consists of completing a registration form and swabbing the inside of the mouth.
To learn more about the SAM campaign and the registration and donation process, visit the website or contact Alex Kimura at 502.819.4377 or alex@sharemarrow.com.