Students can register to donate bone marrow at a Gift of Life bone marrow match drive today from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Those who want to donate marrow can get the inside of their mouths swabbed on Turlington Plaza and at Library West. The swab places a person in the bone marrow registry, and that person can be matched with someone in need of bone marrow at any future time.
Dr. John R. Wingard, program director of the Bone Marrow Transplant Program at UF Health, said there is a need for more donors with an emphasis on nonwhite communities, and college students are a great population to pull from.
“The best way to find a donor is within the family, but family size is shrinking,” Wingard said.
Only about one in three people have a relative who is a suitable match, so donors have to be found outside the family for these patients.
Alyssa Goldenhart, a 20-year-old UF health science junior, is on the executive board of the Footprints Buddy and Support Program at the UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital, where a lot of the children she volunteers with are in need of bone marrow transplants. Goldenhart said becoming close with many of these kids is something that connected her to this cause.
“At our most successful drive, we swabbed over 1,000 people,” Goldenhart said.
Since a drive last Fall, they have already had three matches to one 27-year-old man, one 25-year-old man and one 6-year-old boy.
The next drive will be at the St. Baldrick’s Foundation event from 2 to 6 p.m. Friday on Flavet Field.
[A version of this story ran on page 5 on 3/25/2015 under the headline “Gift of Life bone marrow match drive on campus today”]
