Football Team Registers 129 in 7th Annual Be the Match Bone Marrow Donor Registration Drive
BETHLEHEM, Pa. --- The Moravian College football team hosted its 7th Annual Be The Match Bone Marrow Donor Registration Drive on Tuesday, and the Greyhounds signed up 129 people bringing the program’s total to 1,415 registrants in seven years.
BETHLEHEM, Pa. --- The Moravian College football team hosted its 7th Annual Be The Match Bone Marrow Donor Registration Drive on Tuesday, and the Greyhounds signed up 129 people bringing the program's total to 1,415 registrants in seven years.
For the seventh straight year, the Moravian football squad has joined Villanova University Head Football Coach Andy Talley and Be The Match® to help save lives by recruiting potential marrow donors. This year more than 30 football teams from colleges and universities across the nation are participating in the program to recruit 5,000 new registry members.
Every three minutes someone is diagnosed with a life-threatening blood cancer. More than 14,000 patients don't have a matching marrow donor within their family. They depend on Be The Match to help find someone to give them hope for a cure.
The Get in the Game. Save A Life. Program raises awareness of this need and invites students, faculty, staff and the community to join the Be The Match Registry. To sign up as a committed registry member, people need to meet age and health guidelines and be willing to donate to any patient in need. Registration involves completing a health history form and giving a swab of cheek cells. Those of diverse racial or ethnic heritage are especially needed. Donors and patients who share the same ancestry are mostly likely to match.
"We are thrilled to continue our partnership with the Be The Match Foundation," stated Head Football Coach Jeff Pukszyn. "We have had tremendous success over the past few years with eight known matches from our previous six events and hope we can get more people to be matches. The Get in the Game, Save a Life program is a great opportunity to positively affect people's lives and make an impact that reaches far beyond the football field."
This is a ten-minute process that includes filling out a medical history form and a painless cotton swabbing of the cheek. Moravian has had at least six people that have registered at previous registration drive been selected as matches and going through the process to donate bone marrow.
To view a photo gallery from the registration drive, visit http://moraviansports.com/information/community_service/2015-16/BeTheMatch/index.
