Every 10 minutes, someone in the US dies from a blood cancer – and DoSomething.org’s Give a Spit Campaign is back to help alleviate this number. Leukemia patients all across the country are in need of bone marrow donations, so DoSomething.org is coming to the rescue by reaching out to college students. The organization is teaming up with Be the Match to bring simple and cost-free bone marrow donor registration drives to college campuses across the U.S.
Leukemia kills more children every year than any other disease, and only 30 percent of patients in need of a lifesaving bone marrow donation can find a match within their family. That leaves the remaining 70 percent of patients to rely on complete strangers – namely, college students. Donors between the ages of 18 and 24 are the most in demand on the registry because donations are most successful when the donor falls within this age range. That’s why DoSomething.org and Be the Match are seeking help from college students to host donor registration drives on their campuses – and all it takes is a cheek swab.
If you want to help this cause, you can host local donor registration “parties” (events with more than 25 attendees), or “get-togethers” (events with somewhere between two and 24 attendees). You can also sign up to swab individually. DoSomething.org and Be the Match will help you organize your event by shipping free-of-charge swab kits containing all of the materials needed to register new donors, making it simple, easy and cost-free to potentially save a life.
To learn more about DoSomething.org’s Give a Spit About Cancer campaign, visit their website.