About 8 years ago while in college in New York there was a bone marrow drive at my school run by an organization called Gift of Life. I stopped in on my way to lunch where volunteers swabbed my cheek- a process that took literally 10 seconds. The drive was for a specific person, but everyone that was swabbed was placed on the Gift of Life registry, which is accessible to anyone looking for a transplant across the country and part of the national marrow registry.

Last year, I received a call that I was a potential match for a 60 year old man with myelodysplastic syndrome, a form of preleukemia. I went for further blood work and 1 month later I was told that I was verified as a match and asked to donate. To make a long story short (I can answer any specific questions if you ask), I donated marrow stem cells which are harvested by just spinning them out of my blood (and not by sticking a huge needle in the pelvis as was often routinely done.) I have not met the man who received my stem cells, but I have been told that he is doing well so far and hopefully on his way to recovery.

I am not telling you all this in order to get patted on the back. I honestly think that 99% of people would donate if told they would go through some minor discomfort at minimal risk to potentially save someone's life. The problem though is twofold: 1) not enough people are on the registry (30% of people looking for a donor cannot find a match on the current registry) and 2) there is not enough money to process the swabs for those who have already decided to join the registry. I've been told by the leaders of Gift of Life that they have literally thousands of swab kits waiting to be processed and added to the registry, but do not yet have the funds to do so.

That is where you, my fellow Redditors come in. According to Gift of Life, it costs $54 to process one kit and add that person to the registry. Just a little math here: The average person on the registry has a 1 in 1000 chance of being called to donate in any single year. Thus, over a period of 30 years on the registry, that person has about a 1 in 30 chance of being called to donate. Therefore, it stands to reason that if 30 people are added to the registry, one of those people will be called to donate over the course of their time on the registry. The cost of adding those 30 people and saving a life: $1800. Thats just $1800 to save someone's life- someone's dad, someone's mom, someone's son, daughter, brother, sister, or maybe even YOU.