Dec 7 10
Thank you to the UD English Language Institute for inviting me to speak to your class. I hope you found my discussion about childhood cancer and The B+ Foundation worthwhile. If nothing else, it got you out of doing some work! :) The students in the class were from Colombia, Taiwan, Korea, and China. (See picture on the left.)
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As you know, The B+ Foundation helps families from all over the country, but we primarily source money from the DE-MD-PA-NJ region. To ultimately make a bigger impact in the war against childhood cancer, we need to increase awareness and funds from around the country. Susan G. Komen didn't get to where they are today by limiting themselves to the Dallas metropolitan area. I am pleased to report successful expansion efforts of The B+ Foundation and our fight against childhood cancers.
"UDance", the largest student-run philanthropy at the University of Delaware has been a blessing for our mission. The goal of UDance 2011 is to raise $200,000 for our cause and our Foundation is the sole beneficiary. We can't thank the UD students enough. In the coming year, we will also hold large B+ events at the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, UNC - Greensboro, VA Tech, Radford College, and several other schools are in the works. We are very grateful to the student leaders at these schools. Additionally, I am very pleased to announce that we have been selected as a National Philanthropy for the Kappa Delta Rho fraternity. The men of KDR have just been amazing!!! Last week, Katie Wilson (last year's UDance Co-Chair and our incredibly hard-working B+ Program Director) and I had numerous great meetings with universities and Greek organizations at a conference of an organization that we now belong to. This is all part of our long-term plan to cure childhood cancers and immediate-term plan to help more families who are battling childhood cancers.
I will continue to keep you apprised of the expansion progress of OUR Foundation.
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Continuing with good news, I want to give you an update on our bone marrow drives. As you will hopefully recall, we have helped organize about 10 different bone marrow drives. I didn't foresee this as one of the things we would be significantly involved in when we created the Foundation, but we have been able to do quite a few. My philosophy on these drives is that you, as the donor, will extend the recipient's life. It may be for a month or for decades. How could you not withstand a few days of discomfort when you know you have the ability to give someone life. I had a conversation with a Philadelphia TV reporter who was a bone marrow donor. When I asked him about his recipient, he replied "It didn't work. He only lived for four more months". I told him that, from the perspective of a father whose child died, if you could give me 4 more months with Andrew, I'd build a statue to you. His bone marrow donation process was not a failure at all. It wasn't as successful as everyone hoped; but it wasn't a failure.
I joined the Bone Marrow Registry in 1989 and I expected that I would be called shortly. I have yet to be called. Getting that call will be one of the happiest days of my life. I hope that call comes. Finding a match is a very complicated process, though. Can you imagine being the parent of a child dying from cancer and you are sitting in that hospital room, every day waiting for the doctor to come through the doorway with the news that they found a match. The chance of a sibling being a match is only 25%. I can't tell you how excited we were when the doctor came into our room and informed us that Ali was a match for Andrew. I thought that was just so fitting. They always said that they were twins. Unfortunately, Andrew was never healthy enough to receive a bone marrow transplant.
In speaking with the agency that we work with on our bone marrow drives, I have been told that our drives have generated THREE potential matches. For confidentiality reasons, it will be quite some time before we learn whether these matches went through to donation and what the outcome is. Donors and recipients cannot learn about each other until 12 months after the donation and only if both parties agree. It's a pretty cool feeling, though, to know that we have potentially played a small role in giving someone life. Thank you to everyone who is on the Bone Marrow Registry. If you'd like to learn more about bone marrow donation, please visit www.dkmsamericas.org.
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Happy Chanukah to all of our Jewish friends!
(And a special thank you to Sam and Max for making a donation to The Foundation in lieu of their first night's gifts!)
Live Like Andrew - make a difference in someone's life TODAY. It's up to you!
B+
Ali's & Andrew's Dad
www.BePositive.org