Article taken from a recent Bryant University email that the campus received:
With the recent tragic events in Boston, the Rhode Island Blood Bank is in need of donations in support of area hospitals in need. As they do each year, the Bryant University field hockey team has teamed up with the Rhode Island Blood Center for a two-day Blood Drive and Marrow Registration, scheduled for this Wednesday, April 17 and Thursday, April 18 from 11:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. And this year donations are even more important to help save the life of someone in need.
The donation center will be set up inside South Dining Hall in the Bryant Center on both days.
The Blood Drive and Marrow registration is dedicated to 23 year old David Lash. A senior at Bryant University, David was diagnosed with a rare “double hit” lymphoma. After four rounds of chemotherapy and several blood transfusions at the Dana Farber Center in Boston, he received a marrow transplant from an unrelated donor last October. Thanks to the generosity of the marrow donor, David is now back at Bryant and will graduate in May with the Class of 2013.
Every year, thoughts of patients like David depend upon life-saving blood & marrow donors. Please come out and show your support for those in need.
For bone marrow registration, a simple cheek swab is taken from each volunteer, a process that takes just seconds to complete.
Once the swab is taken, each volunteer’s sample will be entered into the National Donor Bank to determine if a match can be found with a cancer patient seeking a bone marrow transplant. If a match is found, the volunteer will be further tested to see if he or she is, indeed, a match.
On any given day, more than 6,000 men, women and children are searching the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) Registry for a life-saving donor. These patients have leukemia, lymphoma and other life-threatening diseases that can be treated by a bone marrow or cord blood transplant. For many of these patients, a transplant may be the best and only hope of a cure.
Please bring your driver’s license or another form of identification when you donate. Free pizza will be served to all who donate.