Moravian Signs Up 168 at 4th Annual Be The Match Bone Marrow Donor Registration Drive
BETHLEHEM, Pa. --- The Moravian College football team hosted its 4th Annual Be The Match Bone Marrow Donor Registration Drive on Wednesday, April 17th, and the Greyhounds registered 168 people into the registry.
BETHLEHEM, Pa. --- The Moravian College football team hosted its 4th Annual Be The Match Bone Marrow Donor Registration Drive on Wednesday, April 17th, and the Greyhounds registered 168 people into the registry.
This marks the fourth straight year, the football squad has partnered with the Be The Match Foundation in participating in the Get in the Game, Save a Life Program. The goal of this partnership is to give everyone a chance to join the Be The Match Registry and the National Bone Marrow Donor Program Registry.
"Participating in the Get in the Game, Save a Life program is an opportunity to make a difference that extends far beyond the lines of the football field," stated head football coach Jeff Pukszyn. "The chance to save someone's life makes our work with the Be the Match Foundation such an important and worthwhile cause."
This is a ten-minute process that includes filling out a medical history form and a painless cotton swabbing of the cheek. Moravian is looking for people from every background so more patients have a chance for a cure.
In 2010, Moravian registered 457 for the program including Stephanie Pezzello, now a junior on Moravian's field hockey team. In June 2011, Pezzello was found to be a perfect match an 11-year-old with leukemia, and she had the surgery to make the donation shortly after that.
"I was so surprised to hear that I was a potential match, let alone an exact match," Pezzello explained. "When I got the final word that I was an exact match, there was no question, I had to do it. I would have never gotten this opportunity if it weren't for the football team holding the Be The Match donor registry drive at school."
Pezzello and now 12-year-old Maddie had a chance to meet in New York City last summer after the year of no contact after the bone marrow donation surgery.
Moravian has two other students that have been matched and gone through the procedure to donate bone marrow with sophomore cheerleader Rachel Knecht and sophomore Matt Adams each registering in 2012 and donating in the last six months.
"I would tell people that if you are on the fence about signing up, and I was one of them at first, it is something you should do because you have the potential to give someone a second chance at life," Knecht said. "The process you go through as a donor can't be any worse than the pain and suffering the person you are donating too has been going through."
The football program registered another 207 people in 2011 and with the 205 last April and today's total, Moravian has accounted for a total of 1,037 registrations in four years.
To view a photo gallery from today's registration, visit http://moraviansports.com/sports/fball/2012-13/BeTheMatch2013/index.
