South San Francisco’s local nursing school, Nursing Care Providers, will be hosting two bone marrow and stem cell drives at their two campuses this month. The NCP campus up on Longford at the old Serra Vista Elementary School will hold one drive on February 19th from 11am-2pm. The process is simple and painless and would put you on the donor list to help be someone’s hero in saving a life. NCP’s 2nd campus in Hayward will host another drive on March 7th.
This drive is specific for donors from multi-racial and multi-ethnic folks in our community. Please help get the word out.
From the Asian American Donor Program’s website:
History:
In 1989, two Asian leukemia patients, Amanda Chiang, 9 months, and Judith Jang Berkoltz, 32, were in desperate need of bone marrow transplants. Both patients were unable to find a match within their own families. Turning to the National Marrow Donor Program® (NMDP) Registry, the patients hoped to find unrelated marrow donors. With only 123 Asian donors listed on the National Registry, they were told that the prospects of finding compatible donors were virtually impossible.
Determined family and friends of the two patients made a statewide appeal to recruit more Asians onto the Registry. Despite the tremendous emotional and financial sacrifice which led to the successful recruitment of more than 2,000 Asians, no matches were found. However, the unfortunate deaths of these two people gave birth to the compelling mission of the Asian American Donor Program (AADP) and the hope of new life to others.
More on Nursing Care Providers in South City please read our previous article HERE
