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St. Cloud State University
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Community donates bone marrow
By Monica Tice
Published:
Thursday, April 1, 2004
Media Credit: Adam Masloski
Mandy Lovold takes a blood sample from Melissa Eckenrod Wednesday in Atwood Ballroom as part of a bone marrow drive that took place throughout the day.
Two hundred people registered to become a bone marrow donor Wednesday at the fourth annual Bone Marrow Registration Drive at SCSU.
"It's amazing to me to think I may be called upon to save somebody's life, or at least extend their life," senior Trevor Roth said.�"It's a great opportunity for me to be a part of that."
The bone marrow drive was organized by the Communication Studies Department and communication studies club at SCSU. It was formally dedicated to its inspiration, Daun Kendig.
Kendig was a communication studies professor at SCSU. She died two years ago after struggling with non-Hodgkins lymphoma.�Kendig received a marrow transplant allowing her to extend her life a year longer to spend with friends and family.
"Daun asked us (the family) to stick with the marrow donor project, to do what we could for it," said Diane Kendig, Daun's sister.�
"She had worked hard for the program long before she ever had cancer," she said.
Students like senior Roshelle Kiecker volunteered to help out with the event.
"I got involved with the drive when my professor, Diana Rehling, approached me," Kiecker said.�"I could tell by the way she spoke to our class about the drive and the event here today that she had a great commitment and a great passion for it and obviously she was touched on an emotional level; so she inspired me to want to make a difference."
Getting involved in the drive provides an opportunity for students to become engaged in the community, said Diana Rehling, faculty chair of the SCSU drive.�
"Students who come and get on the registry make a commitment," Rehling said.�"They've said 'I'm more than just myself, I belong to a community and I care about that.' That's the first step to becoming a more engaged and involved citizen and that's important."
Donations from the community, help from the Retired Senior Volunteer Program Nurses and funding from the Granite City Rotary and the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) have helped to make the event possible, Rehling said.�
Because of funding, the SCSU drive allows people to get on the registry for free.
"For this drive, St. Cloud Rotary has been paying $35 per donor," said Russ Rooney, a member of Marrow Donor Services with the American Red Cross.� "Sometimes, we get extra funds from drives, so we've been using some of that funding to help pay for this drive because it has been so successful."
Around 40,000 people are on the local registry and over five million are on the NMDP registry.�Out of 40,000, the local American Red Cross does about 20 transplants per year.
"For bone marrow donors there's an old quote that says, 'To the world you may just be one person, but to one person, you may be the world,'" Rooney said.�
About 450 people have been registered at SCSU since the drive started four years ago. The goal is to reach 600 by the end of this drive, Rehling said.
Seventy percent of people who need a stem cell or bone marrow transplant find it through the registry, Rehling said.
Get involved
To find out more about the NMDP or how to become a marrow or blood stem cell donor, visit
www.marrow.org
.
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