Welcome to my bar mitzvah chesed project.  As my bar mitzvah gets closer, I sat down with my family to decide what I could do to help others.  It became a very easy three part decision.  First - my father has been a runner for many years and has been trying to get me to run with him.  As if we weren't having enough bonding time learning my bar mitzvah parsha, we decided it would be fun to start training to run a race together. 

Secondly, we had to decide what race to run.  That too was an easy decision, we decided to run the 4 mile Race for Israel the morning of the Israeli Day parade.  My family are strong supporters of Israel and I have many many cousins living there who I love to go visit. 

Finally, we had to decide what charity to contribute to.  Again, the decision was easy - Gift Of Life.  This amazing organization literally saves lives!  Jay Feinberg, the founder of this wonderful organization, is my mother's oldest friend in the world and his parents are my grandparents best friends.  Our family has watched this organization grow from attempting to find a match to Jay to now saving lives of hundreds of people.  They run an international bone marrow donor registry that helps men, women and children suffering from diseases such as leukemia and lymphoma find matching donors for bone marrow transplants. One in 1,000 of the donors in the Gift of Life registry actually help save a life each and every year!

It is so simple, you just have to get your cheek swabbed and then you are in the registry.  If you are a match, you get the opportunity to save someone's life. While I am not old enough yet to actually be a bone marrow donor, I can help financially. It cost $54 to process each cheek swab.  There are still over 11,000 cheek swab kits waiting to be processed. It is my hope that I can raise enough money to process at least 36 kits - that is $1,944 in total.  I hope that one day one of the kits that we pay to have processed leads to a match and transplant for some desperate patient hoping for that Miracle Cure.  Please help me reach my goal by sponsoring my run!  You can contribute through my donor circle. It is even tax deductible!  Please join my Donor Circle and help save a life!