The two-day bone marrow drive for three-year-old Xander Valentin will be held at CarePartners Health Services on Friday, Jan. 9 in the Homecare IDG Room — and at the Seymour Auditorium on Saturday, Jan. 10. Both locations are in the facility at 68 Sweeten Creek Road.
Press Release
From Delete Blood Cancer:
Asheville, NC, January 5, 2015: Three-year-old Xander Valentin, has been searching for a life-saving bone marrow donor since being diagnosed with acute myelogenic leukemia in November 2014. He is a tough little boy who loves Pixar movies, going to the park, and playing tag with this older brother. However, Xander has been battling for his life since he was first diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 2012, three months after his first birthday. Since Xander has not been able to find a matching donor within his family, they are turning to the community for help. Being of multi-ethnic heritage, the odds of Xander finding are even slimmer as there is a lack of ethnically diverse donors on the national registry. When Xander’s grandmother, an employee at CarePartners Health Services, told her coworkers about her grandson’s story, they wanted to help by calling attention to this cause for him and other patients in need of a matching donor.
The CarePartners Health Services employees have teamed up with Delete Blood Cancer to host a two-day bone marrow donor drive to register new potential donors for patients suffering from blood cancers and blood diseases. The registration drive will take place from 9 AM to 5 PM in the Homecare IDG Room of the CarePartners Health Services main building on Friday, January 9, and the Seymour Auditorium (located at 68 Sweeten Creek Road in Asheville, NC) on Saturday, January 10..
About 150,000 Americans are diagnosed with a blood cancer each year. Many patients can be saved with bone marrow transplants, and nearly 70 percent of patients in need of a transplant must search for a donor outside of their family to give them a second chance at life. Less than half are lucky enough to find their match and receive a transplant. We can change these odds. Registration takes less than five minutes and consists of swabbing the inside of the mouth and filling out a registration form. Anyone who cannot attend the drive can register online at DeleteBloodCancer.org.
About Delete Blood Cancer
Delete Blood Cancer DKMS is part of the world’s largest network of donor centers. Our mission is to build the number of suitable bone marrow and stem cell donors, because we believe that no life should be lost due to an inability to find a donor match. Today, the organization is part of the world’s largest bone marrow donor center. We have registered more than 4.9 million potential donors and facilitated more than 64,000 transplants around the world. But we’re not stopping there. We lead the fight against blood cancer by working with families, communities and organizations to recruit donors and provide more patients with second chances at life.
For more information or to register as a bone marrow donor, please visit DeleteBloodCancer.org.
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