Name: Emily Brodkin
Year: 2018
Hometown: Ridgewood, New Jersey
Major(s): Community Health and Economics
For those who don’t know, what is Gift of Life?
The Gift of Life is a public, not-for-profit bone marrow registry looking for potential bone marrow donors for patients with blood cancers, such as leukemia or lymphoma. An individual is diagnosed with blood cancer every 4 minutes––that’s 360 people every day––and 70% of these patients will not find a match within their families, forcing them to turn to the registry for help. The Gift of Life organization works to find donor matches for these patients with no other options. Our Gift of Life group at Tufts works to educate our campus about blood cancers and marrow donations, as well as to register as many people as possible!
What’s something you wish people knew about Gift of Life?
Registering to join the Gift of Life bone marrow registry only takes 5 minutes, and college-age students are the best potential donors! Registering involves a free, simple cheek swab that could possibly result in saving the life of another individual. I personally can’t think of anything that would be more fulfilling.
What got you interested in working with Gift of Life?
I was cheek-swabbed by the Gift of Life group at Tufts in the Spring of 2016 and immediately asked to get involved. When the previous campus ambassador for the Gift of Life graduated this past spring, I applied to the organization to take his place leading the Tufts group because I felt that the mission and goal of the organization was too important to not continue on our campus. We’ve registered over 500 Tufts students so far and educated hundreds more about blood cancers and bone marrow donations. I’m really proud of everything we’ve accomplished.
What would you say your biggest success yet has been with Gift of Life?
Probably our registration drives in the campus center this past September. Our group members were all so dedicated and amazing, and we ended up registering almost 200 Tufts students in about 4 hours.
Any upcoming events we can go to or ways to get involved?
We’ll be holding another set of registration drives in the campus center during the second or third week in November! Look out for us tabling and check out our Facebook page, @giftoflifetufts, if you’d like to register. If you’re interested in learning more, please reach out to me or check out https://www.giftoflife.org
Biggest pet peeve when swabbing people?
Please don’t ask me to hold your gum!