In the News
April 2018: Kingwood boy diagnosed with Leukemia healthy today thanks to Boston woman
April 2018: When Birthright Can Be A Life-Saving Trip
by Michelle Chabin
For the past 14 years, the Florida-based nonprofit Gift of Life has offered presentations to Birthright’s North American participants about the importance of becoming a potential bone marrow or stem cell donor and the opportunity to enter its registry ... At a recent Gift of Life fundraising event in Jerusalem, 2014 Birthrighter Zoe Miller, who was swabbed during her trip, met for the first time with the Miami cancer patient whose life she saved. Read the full article.
March 2018: My Birthright Israel trip was life changing – and not just for me
by Alec Burkin
My story began as a typical millennial from Boston, a reform Jewish-American – devoid of any substantive connection to Israel. My Jewish identity was formed through a combination of summer camp, Sunday school and overly lavish bar/bat-mitzvahs. I visited Israel for the first time as a Birthright-Israel participant in 2011, when I was eighteen years old. Read the full story of how Alec became a marrow donor and saved the life of a 61-year-old woman.
March 2018: Gift of Life's Community Engagement Coordinator Krissy Kelly and volunteer Quint Finney speak with Byron Barnett on "Urban Update"
March 2018: Graduate finds donor for transplant
by Jonathan Greenberg
Most college students don’t think about the possibility of having a life threatening disease while attending classes or hanging with friends. 2011 graduate Sarah Anders was diagnosed with Aplastic Anemia in September 2015. But in the spring of 2016, after a year of failed immunotherapy in Maryland, Anders got a match with 25-year-old Brett Augenstein. Read the full article.
March 2018: A central Wisconsin man receives another chance at life
by Victoria Saha
A central Wisconsin man finally met the Texas man who saved his life. "I was told that I had 50 percent chance of survival," Paul Katz of Stevens Point said. In June 2016, The 62-year-old was diagnosed with Acute Lymphomatic Leukemia. Through 'Gift of Life,' a bone marrow and stem cell registry, Katz was match with a donor named Evan Smith. View the video.
March 2018: Birthright Israel Participants Give Over 200 'Gifts of Life'
by Judy Siegel-Itzkovich
Of the more than 53,000 participants in Birthright Israel who have given tissue samples from cells in their mouths for testing to see if they can be bone marrow donors, 1,543 matches were made and 205 of them have saved others’ lives. The tissue samples were taken by Gift of Life, an international public bone-marrow and blood stem cell registry that has for 25 years facilitated bone marrow transplants for children and adults suffering from leukemia, lymphoma and other potentially fatal diseases. Read the full article.
February 2018: Just don’t call it a roast: CRE elite gather to honor Stephen Siegel
by Hiten Samtani
Is there a correlation between one’s ability to close monster deals and their ability to laugh at their own expense? Stephen Siegel might be the guy to ask. On Wednesday night, the leasing titan was the subject of some good-natured, zany and occasionally ribald humor from a half-dozen of his “best friends” in commercial real estate, in a benefit event organized by The Real Deal to support the Gift of Life [Marrow Registry] foundation. Read the full article.
February 2018: Livingston Native Donates Stem Cells to Save Florida Mother’s Life
by Danielle Santola
A 22-year-old Livingston native who donated stem cells to an anonymous Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma patient said the procedure was worth it when she had the opportunity to meet the recipient, a 40-year-old South Florida mother, at the Gift of Life 5K recently held at South County Regional Park in Boca Raton, Fla. Read the full article.
February 2018: Jews You Should Know Podcast Episode 023 - The Gift of Life Founder: A Conversation with Jay Feinberg (and his donor Becky Keller)
The entire podcast series is available for download via iTunes.
February 2018: Student Zoe Miller gives life-saving stem cell donation
by Sanjali De Silva
Graduate student Zoe Miller swabbed her mouth with a Q-tip in the summer of 2014, not knowing that one day it would change lives. Miller went on a Birthright trip to Israel where everyone in her group swabbed a Q-tip that put them in the Gift of Life Marrow Registry as potential stem cell and bone marrow donors. Two years later, Miller got a call saying she was a potential match for stem cell donation. Read the full article.
January 2018: Honoring Daniela Moffson's legacy through act of Chesed
by Daniella J. Greenbaum
More than 400 people, old and young, gathered together at the Ramaz Middle School for a chessed fair, held to commemorate the second yartzeit of Daniella Nechama Moffson, ז׳׳ל. Daniella dreamed of being a doctor. Today, at the chessed fair, her friends made 45 blood donations. I’m told that translates into 135 saved lives. That wasn’t all. Around 200 toys were collected and donated for sick kids through Ohel’s program. More than 200 birthday cards were written to children in Emunah’s shelters and homes. 200 people were swabbed and entered into the Gift of Life bone marrow registry. Read the full article.
January 2018: Cori Sudderth cherishes the Gift of Life she was given by complete stranger
by Celeste Turner
During the holiday gift-giving season, one Metairie woman diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia received the ultimate present, a lifesaving donor. After an international search of the bone marrow registry by the Gift of Life organization, Cori Sudderth, 49, was matched with a 23-year-old New York resident, Jonathan Grossman, that changed her life. "How do you thank somebody that saved your life? There are no words for me to express how grateful I am," said Sudderth, who had been diagnosed in December 2015. Read the full article.
January 2018: The Path to Pre-Med
by Vanessa Beeson
For Laurel native, Bradley Welch, the path to pre-med at Mississippi State began much earlier than most. Welch is a biochemistry major in the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Entomology and Plant Pathology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences ... Welch is also Mississippi State’s Gift of Life Marrow Registry Campus Ambassador since fall 2016. To date, his team has swabbed 1,168 people and facilitated five matches and one transplant. The transplant was for a fourteen-year-old girl with leukemia. “The reason I got involved with the Gift of Life Marrow Registry was because it was a way to make an individual difference now,” Welch said. “I didn’t want to wait until I got out of medical school to start saving lives.” Read the full article.
2017
December 2017: It's Better to Give – Campus Ambssadors recruit young donors
by Licia Avelar
When Boca Raton resident Jay Feinberg was diagnosed with leukemia in 1991, someone suggested that he make a bucket list. Instead, he and his family went to work recruitng more than 60,000 people to test for possible bone marrow matches. Four years later they found a match, and Feinberg received a transplant. "He subsequently started Gift of Life Marrow Registry," says Marti Freund, director of community engagement for the Boca Raton nonprofit. Read the full article.
December 2017: Marrow donor and recipient will meet at Steps for Life
A Miami woman diagnosed with a rare form of lymphoma will meet the marrow donor who saved her life at the annual Steps for Life 5K Run and Walk at Sunset Cove in South County Regional Park. The Gift of Life Marrow Registry event takes place on Sunday, January 14, 2018 at 7:30 a.m. "After so many lows, I felt hope on the day of my transplant that someday I'd be well again and given a second chance," said the marrow recipient. Read the full article.
November 2017: East Brunswick stem cell donor meets woman whose life he saved
by Debra Rubin
It’s been a productive year for Harvey Pava, a 27-year-old resident of East Brunswick: He created one life, and saved another. Six months ago he became a father when his son, Oliver, was born and on Oct. 29 he met the 42-year-old Long Island woman whose life he saved by donating his stem cells. "I try to make each year bigger and better than the one before,” said Pava in a phone interview with NJJN, although he readily acknowledged it would be hard to top 2017. Read the full article.
November 2017: East Brunswick Gift of Life giver meets recipient
by Cheryl Makin
There are many things in life to be thankful for. For Harvey Pava, one of these is that a friend was manning a Gift of Life Marrow Registry booth when he was a freshman in college. It gave him the opportunity to save a life. In order to raise public consciousness of the nearly 10,000 U.S. patients who are waiting for a lifesaving bone marrow transplant, November is recognized as National Marrow Awareness Month. After an international search of the bone marrow registry, Pava, 27, a township resident, was able to make a stem cell donation to Florence Ivy, 42, of Mastic Beach, New York. Read the full article.
November 2017: UF student meets man who received his bone marrow
by Jessica Giles
When Michael Cizek had his cheek swabbed outside Library West in November 2015, he didn’t think anything of it. “I didn’t really know what I was signing up for,” the 22-year-old said. “I didn’t think I’d ever get a phone call.” But about six months after joining the bone marrow registry that day on campus, he did receive a phone call. He was a match. After some further blood testing on the 10 necessary chromosomes to identify a match, the UF marketing senior traveled to Washington, D.C., in June 2016 to donate bone marrow to a man he’d never met. Read the full article.
November 2017: A Renewal of Incredible Proportions
by Nina Glick
We grew up in the fledgling years of Jay Feinberg’s publicly sharing with the Jewish world his need for a bone marrow transplant. We believe that he opened up the minds of many to the enormous success that bone marrow transplants can be in the lives of seriously ill individuals. We are especially proud of the fact that our son Akiva was a donor to a child, donating both his marrow and later his stem cells. While he never met his recipient, he has the zechut of knowing that he actually saved someone’s life. How many of us can be blessed with such a feeling? Read the full story.
November 2017: Man meets bone marrow donor who saved his life
WCJB 20 ABC-TV coverage of the first meeting between bone marrow donor Michael Cizek and transplant recipient Jeffrey Turner at University of Florida's Flavet Field at the X Ambassador's concert on November 9, 2017.
November 2017: Gift of Life’s new app to save lives of cancer patients
by Faran Fagan
A new technology is helping donors hoping to save cancer patients. Gift of Life Marrow Registry, a national nonprofit public bone marrow and blood stem cell registry based in Boca Raton, recently launched a smartphone app to help streamline the donor registration process. “Our team worked tirelessly to create an app that makes it that much easier to save a life and put that power in the palm of peoples’ hands,” said Gift of Life founder and CEO Jay Feinberg, of Delray Beach. Read the full story.
October 2017: Bone Marrow Donor and Recipient Meet for the First Time
NY1 coverage of the first meeting between bone marrow donor Harvey Pava and transplant recipient Florence Ivy at Gift of Life's Steps for Life 5k at Brookfield Place in New York City on October 29, 2017.
October 2017: Steps for Live 5k Live Shot
NY1 Spectrum News live coverage of Gift of Life Marrow Registry Steps for Life 5k, featuring interview with CEO Jay Feinberg.
October 2017: The stranger who saved my son's life
BBC Radio4 broadcast an interview with Jenny Kemp, mother of marrow transplant recipient Rory Kemp who recently met his Gift of Life donor, Christopher Mattson. All three share their stories during this heartwarming conversation.
 |
October 2017: Blood cancer schoolboy flies to US to meet transplant stranger who gave him gift of life
by Sarah Vesty
Teenager Rory Kemp and his family came face to face with Christopher Mattson in New York and thanked him for stepping forward as a vital stem cell donor. Rory, of Edinburgh, was diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer – acute myeloid leukaemia – in February 2014. Christopher, who had signed up to the Gift of Life stem cell register in America on a whim, was found to be a match. Rory had the transplant at Yorkhill Hospital in Glasgow just days before Christmas 2014. Read the full story.
October 2017: Bone marrow registry drive appreciated
by Vivian (Nolan) Folensbee, transplant recipient
Cheers to the recent [Gift of Life] bone marrow registry drive held at SUNY Oneonta. I was very fortunate to receive the gift of life (stem cells) from a registered donor who had responded to a drive like this. A simple swab of his mouth put his DNA in the registry files. Months later, I was praying that Dana Farber Cancer Center in Boston would find a perfect match for me. Thank God, it did. I received the cells in October 2015 and have been doing great since. A transplant from a donor was needed for my survival. To read the full story, click here.
October 2017: Inside South Florida — Gift of Life Marrow Registry
Inside South Florida interviews Gift of Life Marrow Registry Director of Community Engagement Marti Freund.
September 2017: Palm Beach Gardens man dies of cancer after failing to find donor
The dearth of Hispanic bone marrow donors cost a Palm Beach Gardens man his life after a six-month fight with cancer. Manny Valdes, a 42-year-old husband and father of two, was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia in February. The Gift of Life Marrow Registry, a national non-profit organization based in Boca Raton, has been alerting the public to the donor crisis for Hispanics. It operates a public registry dedicated to curing blood cancer through marrow and stem cell donation. And though the registry appealed nationwide to increase Hispanic representation in the donor pool, Valdes died on Aug. 22 at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Ohio. To read the full story, click here.
September 2017: Marrow Donor and Recipient Meet on NY1 Broadcast
September 2017: A Message in a Bone
by Gary Stromberg
I was walking down a crowded street in Santa Monica, California one a brisk afternoon, thinking about what I wanted for lunch when the text came in from my daughter. It was a copy of a message she had just received. It read: “Dear Emily, On Dec. 23, 2015, you volunteered to join the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Registry ... We are writing to share the good news that you are a match for a 69-year-old man suffering from acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). You can save his life..." To read the full story, click here.
September 2017: College students recruit peers to Join Boca-based Gift Of Life Registry
by Marisa Herman
More than 100 college students from 80 different campuses around the country converged in Boca Raton last month with one common goal—learning how they can sign up as many of their peers on a registry to donate bone marrow or stem cells to fight blood cancers and other illnesses. Gift of Lift, which began as a grassroots initiative in 1991, created its Campus Ambassadors Program, known as CAP, four years ago. To read the full article, click here.
June 2017: Pickleball tournament held to fight blood cancer
On March 30, Gift of Life Marrow Registry, headquartered in Boca Raton, Fla., hosted its annual pickleball tournament at Boca West Country Club to benefit the organization. Funds raised by the tournament will be used to add new donors to the registry. To read the full article, click here.
June 2017: Living out Jewish Values in Every Way: A Life-Saving Mitzvah
by Carly Shapiro
It was Charles Bukowski, the American poet and novelist who once wrote, “You begin saving the world by saving one person at a time.” And that’s exactly what Ryan Woloshin, BBYO’s Eastern Region Regional Director, did last month when he became a Gift of Life donor. The Gift of Life program matches bone barrow and stem cell donors with recipients using cheek swabs and further blood testing once a potential match is made. To read the full article, click here.
June 2017: Healthcast: Hispanics needing bone marrow transplants
June 2017: Gift of Life chairman and bride choose marrow registry over wedding registry
Bill Begal, chairman of the board of Gift of Life Marrow Registry, and his bride, Kira Epstein, decided that in lieu of a wedding registry they would make the marrow registry the centerpiece of their wedding festivities. “My fiancé and I never wanted to receive gifts; we always wanted to do something amazing,” said Begal. “There is nothing more amazing than saving someone’s life. Each of us has the power within us to save someone with blood cancer, but the only way you’ll ever get that miraculous chance is by joining the registry so the transplant centers can find you.” To read the full article, click here.
May 2017: Want to save a life? Cuban American searches for bone marrow donor
by Brooke Henderson
It took the doctors five weeks to figure out what was wrong. The day after Halloween, Manny Valdes felt pain in his legs that wouldn’t go away. A series of tests showed the presence of a widespread cancer, lighting up his body like a Christmas tree, he said. Oncologist Dr. James Foran from the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville couldn’t believe he was able to function. Valdes was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a rare, aggressive blood and bone marrow cancer. To read the article and watch the video, click here.
Jessica Abo dispels myths about marrow donation and explains the importance of joining Gift of Life Marrow Registry.
May 2017: Stranger saves life of woman with stem cell transplant
Eighty percent of blood cancer patients in need of stem cell or bone marrow transplant are not able to get one, in part because they can't find a match. But you can help change that and save a life by registering to be a donor. All it takes to get started is a simple cheek swab. In the video, see the story of a woman from Parker whose life was saved thanks to a complete stranger. To watch the video about Gift of Life recipient Paige, click here.
May 2017: Chattanooga Student Surprised to be a Gift of Life Donor
by Bill Mitchell
Most of us like to give gifts to others. Sometimes they’re small or sentimental—but they can be once in a lifetime events. At the top of the list is the “gift of life”, and a UTC student had the chance to do that. Paige McCoy had developed leukemia —some didn’t give her much hope. She needed a stem cell transplant and fortunately there was exactly one match in the world. And it was a donor in the Gift of Life registry. The donor in this case was a 22-year old student at UTC who registered two years ago in Knoxville two years ago, and promptly forgot all about it. Thomas Davis was surprised to get the call but he didn’t hesitate to go through with the stem cell transplant. To read the full article and watch the video, click here.
May 2017: Mets hosted Gift of Life reunion last night at Citi Field
by Joe McDonald
Before last night’s Met game against the Padres, the club – along with The Gift of Life – hosted a reunion of sorts in one of the suites at Citi Field. Stem cell transplant recipient Wendy Wax, met for the first time her donor Ruchail Prupis for the first time in the suites thanks to the Gift of Life. Wax, who resides in New Jersey, suffered from leukemia, but thanks to a transplant facilitated by Gift of Life Marrow Registry, she has rebuilt her life. Both Wax and Prupis, who were anonymous (even to each other) until the meeting, met for the first time last night.To read the full article, click here.
May 2017: Mets help Gift of Life facilitate special meeting
By Anthony DiComo
Wendy Wax knew her blood stem cell donor was a real person, but felt a need to confirm it. She felt desire to see the person who saved her life in flesh as well as blood. So when a Citi Field suite door opened Wednesday and Ruchail Feldman walked through, Wax reached out and grabbed her, hugged her, cried with her. "It's overwhelming," Wax said. "You feel this unbelievable connection to a perfect stranger." To read the full article and watch the video, click here.
Gift of Life Marrow Registry thanks the New York Mets for their ongoing support of our lifesaving mission.
May 2017: Leukemia Survivor Meets Stem Cell Donor Who Gave Her The Gift Of Life
by Samantha Liebman
It was an emotional moment when, after three years Wendy Wax met her stem cell donor in a suite at Citi Field. “We share things that nobody else could ever share. I’m like her little carbon copy walking around,” she told 1010 WINS’s Samantha Liebman. Wendy was diagnosed with leukemia in 2014, and said when the doctor told her, all she could think about was her 6-year-old daughter. “The more he explained, the more I didn’t understand because I was in shock, and I asked him to just cut to the chase and tell me what I had to do,” she said. To read the full article and watch the video, click here.
May 2017: NCAA-bound UIC softball pitcher driven to expand bone-marrow donor pool
by David Hough
On the morning of a game at Youngstown State earlier this season, Illinois-Chicago softball pitcher Karissa Frazier arrived armed for a successful road trip. Frazier packed enough kits to perform cheek swabs on Youngstown State players who had agreed to add their samples to a worldwide bone-marrow registry. So Frazier hopped on a bus to the ballpark by herself, gave a presentation on the #swab2save campaign in her role as UIC's campus ambassador for Gift of Life, and helped swab the young women she would try to strike out later in the series. To read the full article, click here.
May 2017: Manny Valdés, un Latino que necesita transplante de medula ósea
Gustavo Reyes
¿Sabía usted que el 55 por ciento de los pacientes hispanos de cáncer y el 75 por ciento de los pacientes multirraciales nunca son emparejados con los donantes que pueden salvar sus vidas? El sur de la Florida tiene más de 2,5 millones de hispanos y el Regalo de la Vida Marrow Registry está instando a la comunidad para ayudar a salvar vidas, incluyendo local de la Florida residente, Manny Valdés. Para leer el artículo completo, haga clic aquí.
May 2017: Joven hispano, padre de dos hijos, necesita donación para salvar su vida
by Isabel Olmos
La vida de Manny Valdés, un hombre de 42 años de edad de ascendencia cubana, felizmente casado y padre de dos hijos, está en manos fundamentalmente de la comunidad latina. Diagnosticado en febrero con leucemia mieloide aguda (LMA), una forma rara de cáncer de la sangre y médula ósea, a Valdés le resulta difícil encontrar un donante debido a su herencia hispanocubana. Valdés, que es de Miami, vive en Palm Beach Gardens desde hace ocho años, ha sido tratado en el hospital de la Clínica Mayo de Jacksonville. El tipo de tejido que requiere tiene carácter hereditario, de la misma forma que lo tiene el color de los ojos o del cabello. En este caso, la diversidad étnica y racial es crucial para encontrar las coincidencias requeridas para los trasplantes de médula ósea. Para leer el artículo completo, haga clic aquí.
May 2017: Lymphoma Survivor Meets Woman Who Saved His Life with Stem Cell Donation
by Joana Fernandes, PhD
Almost two years after Peter Levine received a stem cell donation to treat his non-Hodgkin T-cell lymphoma from a stranger, the Boston native had a chance to thank the donor — 24-year-old Cheryl Rosenberg — at the third annual Gift of Life Marrow Registry Steps for Life 5K run held in that city on April 30. The donation was made possible by the Gift of Life, a Florida-based nonprofit organization that allows people to register for bone marrow donation, and facilitates transplants of bone marrow and blood stem cells for patients with leukemia, lymphoma and other blood-related diseases. To read the full article, click here.
April 2017: Want to save a life? Gardens man needs Hispanic bone marrow donor
The dearth of Hispanic bone marrow donors has a Palm Beach Gardens man with a rare blood cancer in the unenviable position of begging for someone who can save his life. Manny Valdes says if willing Hispanics donors could just get their mouths swabbed, then he can possibly find a bone marrow match. The test is free for the potential donor. The 42-year-old husband and father of two was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia in February. It is a rare form of blood and bone marrow cancer. To read the full article, click here.
April 2017: Stem Cell Donor, Recipient Meet At Chestnut Hill 5K Race
A Bostonian who’s life was saved by a stem cell transplant met his donor for the first time at the Boston Steps for Life 5k Run and Walk in Chestnut Hill Sunday. Peter Levine, 67, was told he should look into a stem cell transplant after he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin T-cell Lymphoma. The Gift of Life Marrow Registry matched him with 24-year-old Cheryl Rosenburg from New York. “I was hoping I was going to be able to meet her some day,” said Levine. “I am just so grateful that she gave up her stem cells to make me healthy today.” To watch the video, click here.
April 2017: Manny: the Fighter
by Maria Esther
Manny Valdes es un luchador. A warrior who takes on life with a positive attitude and an optimistic heart. A proud father of two. A die-hard Miami Hurricanes fan. A Cuban raised in Miami, he is 42 years old and currently on his second round of chemo. In February, Manny was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer known as Acute Myeloid Leukemia. A stem-cell transplant is Manny’s only chance for a cure. Manny has not yet been able to find a match for bone marrow. The problem is that there are not enough donors with Cuban background in the bone marrow registry. To read the full article, click here.
April 2017: Manuel Valdes: Palm Beach Gardens man battling leukemia
by WPTV Webteam
A Palm Beach Gardens man is battling leukemia and the only thing that can help Manuel Valdes is a bone marrow transplant. Valdes is Hispanic and it makes it more difficult to find a perfect match. "I keep things positive, honestly I'm a very positive person. I don't let those things bother me or dwell on me and stuff like that. I try to look forward as much as possible, so I'm different from most people," said Valdes. To view the video, click here.
April 2017: This couple’s wedding gift registry could help save a life
by Dani-Elle Dubé
It’s tradition in many weddings for guests to gift the bride or groom with a present for their home, or a cheque to help send them off on their new life. But when Bill Begal and his bride Kira said “I do” in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, they told their guests to hold off on the gravy boats and table vases. Instead, they asked them to sign up for a different registry – a bone marrow registry. “Not one wedding gift, nothing,” Begal told CBS New York. “Our wedding gift is the gift of life. Our wedding registry is a bone marrow registry. Make a contribution, enter your email, help make the world a better place.” To read the full story and listen to the broadcast, click here.
April 2017: Couple Swaps Wedding Registry For Bone Marrow Registry, Asks Guests To Become Donors
by Dr. Max Gomez
A young couple that recently got married had a very unusual gift request for their wedding guests. They didn’t want silverware or appliances. They asked instead for bone marrow. As CBS2’s Dr. Max Gomez reports, they specifically asked people to become donors. From day one, Bill Begal knew his bride was a match. But the Institute for Justice says about 3,000 people die each year because they can’t find their match. So the couple traded its wedding gift registry for another. “Not one wedding gift, nothing. Our wedding gift is the gift of life. Our wedding registry is a bone marrow registry,” the groom said. “Make a contribution, enter your email, help make the world a better place.” To read the full story and watch the video, click here.
April 2017: Students spread positivity in community on Good Deeds Day
by Yelin Jung
More than 125 students spent their Sunday helping their local community, participating in Maryland Hillel’s Good Deeds Day April 2. In addition to enjoying the games, students could donate clothes, write a card for Syrian refugees and participate in a cheek swab. Cheek swabbing is a way to find matches for blood cancer patients who are looking for donors, Ben Bryer, a volunteer and sophomore community health major, said. Gift of Life, a marrow and blood stem cell registry, collects the DNA of every student who takes the cheek swab into its database to seek donors. To read the full article, click here.
April 2017: Will you marrow me?
by Stephanie Ramirez
Something lasting and forever: that’s the goal when a couple gets married. On Sunday, a D.C. bride and groom took that challenge one step further and cheek-to-cheek. Inside the Washington Hebrew Congregation, Bill (William) Begal stared at his wife with what looked like tears in his eyes. Since day one, Begal knew it was a match. Sadly, the Institute for Justice says about 3,000 people die each year because they can’t find their match. “My fiancé never wanted to receive gifts, we always wanted to do something amazing,” said Begal. So in lieu of wedding gifts, the couple asked for cheeks. They dedicated a table to the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Registry. To read the full article and watch the video, click here.
March 2017: Bone marrow basketball tournament comes to ECU Saturday
by Kayla Morton
East Carolina junior Cam Walker will hold a basketball tournament on ECU’s campus Saturday in order to work towards gaining numbers for the national registry list of bone marrow donors for patients in need of transplants. Walker is the student president of the ECU ambassador organization for The Gift of Life that is in its third year. There are approximately 100 students across the United States involved in this organization, whose main job is to inform communities across the US about the importance of bone marrow registry and how to get involved. To read the full article, click here.
March 2017: “Wild about finding a cure”: UDance raises $1.8 million
by Natalie Walton
This year’s UDance Dance Marathon, which was themed “wild about finding a cure,” raised $1,890,337.16, an increase of almost $200,000 from 2016... UDance also works closely with the Gift of Life organization. While at the event, attendees had the opportunity to sign up for the national bone marrow registry. Senior Katie Katz, the co-executive chair of UDance, brought Gift of Life to UDance last year through the Gift of Life Campus Ambassadors program. During UDance in 2016, over 700 students were added to the national registry. To read the full article, click here.
March 2017: Côte-St-Luc student marks bar mitzvah by helping to battle blood cancer
by John Meagher
Gavi Aspler’s bar mitzvah is still a few months away, but the 12 -year-old Côte-St-Luc resident plans to honour the event by raising awareness and funds for blood cancer treatments. Aspler, along with family and friends, will be hosting a donor drive on Saturday, March 11, which is Purim night, a Jewish holiday, at Tifereth Beth David Jerusalem Congregation in Côte-St-Luc. Rachel Goodman, Aspler’s mother, said donors will not be asked to give blood Saturday, but rather allow their DNA to be collected through simple cheek swabs. To read the full article, click here.
March 2017: Enthusiastic Western Pennsylvania native gives the ‘Gift of Life’
by Toby Tabachnick
Emily Simons was not sure she wanted to hear the news she would be receiving last week, an update regarding the health status of a stranger, albeit one with whom she shares a very intimate connection. On Feb. 24, Simons got a call from Gift of Life, which works to match potential donors with those in need of a stem cell or bone marrow transplant, with an update about the man to whom the West Allegheny native donated stem cells. “I am overwhelmed with relief and joy to announce my cells have graphed [sic] in my patient, and he has since been discharged from the hospital,” Simons wrote on her blog. “He is still in recovery and has a long journey before he is out of the dark, but there is hope.” To read the full article, click here.
February 2017: Will You Marrow Me? Students Encourage Bone Marrow Registration
by Kelly Grosfield
University of Florida ambassadors for The Gift of Life Marrow Registry are on campus in Turlington Plaza this week encouraging community members to join the bone marrow registry. The event “Will You Marrow Me?” is focused on finding marrow matches for those in need. “One of my really good friends gave his bone marrow to a patient a couple months ago and he said it was life changing,” said Meaghan Hanley, a UF student. “I think it’s just an amazing cause and I firmly believe what goes around comes around,” Hanley said. “So if I’m able to help someone out, I’m definitely going to.” To read the full article, click here.
February 2017: "Will you marrow me?" Gift of Life program offers help
by Abbie Ready
February 2017: BU Students look to save lives with bone marrow testing
by A.J. Bush
Students gathered across the Binghamton University campus reaching out to others to help find bone marrow donors on Wednesday. The three day "Mega Bone Marrow Drive" was organized by the students of Chabad at Binghamton, AEPI, SAE and TEP fraternities. Multiple testing locations could be found throughout the campus' many dining halls. To view a video of the event and read the full story, click here.
February 2017: Ky. man saves stranger's life with stem cell transplant
by Julia Rose
It's hard to believe that up until a few months ago, Eric Gurevich and Ron Dreben were total strangers. “I got to see him for the first time and I just gave him this big bear hug and he was crying and his wife was there and his 81-year-old mother was there,” Gurevich said. “Because he received those [stem cells], he was kind of given a new lease on life." Gurevich lives in Louisville. He donated his stem cells to Dreben who lives in Washington D.C. in 2014, one, quick decision that changed the lives of two people. Gurevich remembers the call from the organization Gift of Life like it was yesterday. To watch the video and read the full article, click here.
January 2017: My Journey with Gift of Life
by Peter Schottenfels
Birthright Israel was a life-changing experience for me. Years after my trip took place, the experience continues to have a profound impact on me. In October, I met Etty at a Birthright Israel conference in Tel Aviv, to whom I donated stem cells three years ago. Etty is an Israeli mother of three, lives in Tel Aviv and is both a doctor and a lawyer. She is brilliant, kind and vivacious. And as much as my donation was an antidote to her leukemia, her warmth and spirit surely contributed just as much to her battle with cancer. Here’s how this story begins: I was matched with Etty through a tremendous organization called Gift of Life. To read the full story, click here.
January 2017: Men meet in Boca Raton after one saved the other's life through a blood stem-cell donation
by Jaqueline Powell
A man got to meet the person who saved his life a year ago for the very first time in Boca Raton Sunday morning. Rich Little, 61, received a life-saving blood stem cell donation from 23-year-old Ethan Krafft when Little had just a few weeks left to live. Now, Little is in remission. The two men were brought together for the first time at the Steps for Life 5K, held at FAU'S stadium. The 5K is held every year to raise money for the Gift of Life Marrow Registry, which is headquartered in Boca Raton. To read the full article and watch the video, click here.
January 2017: Blood stem cell donor meets the man whose life he helped save
By Stephen Hobbs
Rch Little thought he might only have a few weeks to live. The Oregon resident wasn't improving despite regular chemotherapy treatments and instead was reliant on finding a perfect match to fight his blood cancer called myelodysplastic syndrome. "We knew early that that was the only cure," Little said. More than 2,000 miles away, at Ohio University, Ethan Krafft had his cheek swabbed [at a Gift of Life Marrow Registry donor drive] with a group of fellow business fraternity members for community service credit. A week later he found out he had a matching tissue type with Little, a man he didn't know but whose life he would soon help save. To read the full article and watch the video, click here.
January 2017: Bone marrow recipient meets man who saved his life
by Yaremi Farinas
In front of a large crowd at this year's Steps For Life 5k, 61-year-old Rich Little of Oregon embraced the stranger who saved his life. "This is an amazing feeling finally getting to meet Rich," said Ethan Krafft. While the two men are of different nationalities, generations apart and live in different states, they have at least one thing in common. After a bone marrow transplant, they now share the same blood type. To read the full article and view video, click here.
2016
December 2016: A look at 20 local people who helped make 2016 memorable
by Staff Writer
[Excerpt] 10. Carol Hatch
Fourteen years ago, Hatch joined a bone-marrow registry and nearly forgot she had until she received a call two years ago that she was a match. The Lunenburg resident did not hesitate to take the blood tests and quickly learned that she was not only a match, but she was the "perfect" match. That perfect match has saved a man's life and created a friendship between two people on opposite sides of the country. Hatch has developed a friendship with Andy Michaels, the man suffering from non-Hodgkins lymphoma whom she donated 500 million stem cells to in 2014. She donated 20 billion T-cells to Michaels in May. The two, who talk on the phone, Facebook and text messages, finally met this June at the Gift of Line Bone Marrow Foundation gala in New York City. To read the full article, click here.
December 2016: The gift of life
by Todd Glasscock
After they hugged, the first thing the 3 1/2-year-old boy did when he and the detective met was to show the detective his chemotherapy port. This November was the first time Charlie Osborn and Corey Hall had ever met. Charlie was the recipient of Hall’s bone marrow, which was needed to fight an inherited immune deficiency disorder. Just a little more than a year had passed since Hall, a detective with the Cleburne Police Department, donated his bone marrow anonymously for a family whose toddler son was diagnosed with Hyper IgM Syndrome, an inherited immune deficiency disorder that leaves those with the syndrome highly susceptible to severe illnesses and cancer. To read the full article, click here.
December 2016: Seeking ‘Hope4Adam,’ they found it
by Oren Peleg
When 31-year-old Adam Krief started chemotherapy this past summer for a rare form of blood cancer, he knew it wouldn’t save his life; it could only buy him time. In dire need of a bone marrow transplant, not a single person out of the 13 million people on the national bone marrow registry was a match. Without a transplant, the father of three’s diagnosis of primary myelofibrosis was a death sentence. “At the beginning, we felt so isolated,” his wife, Lia, recalled, speaking by phone at her husband’s bedside at City of Hope in Duarte. “We just had all those feelings of ‘Why is this happening to us?’” To read the full article, click here.
December 2016: Gift of Life, una muestra de su tejido bucal puede salvar una vida
by Wendy Rhodes
Cuando Robby Holroyd se enteró que pasaría seis horas conectado a una máquina que le sacaría la sangre de un brazo, la procesaría y se la inyectaría por el otro, se entusiasmó. “Me pareció que me había ganado la lotería”, dijo Holroyd, de 24 años y residente en Coral Springs. Mientras asistía a un maratón de baile en el 2011, Holroyd se sometió a una prueba de ADN administrada por Gift of Life, organización sin fines de lucro con sede en Boca Raton que opera un registro internacional de células madre de sangre y médula ósea que da a los pacientes de cáncer en la sangre una segunda oportunidad. Para leer el artículo completo, haga clic aquí.
November 2016: How a Penn junior is working to fight blood cancer through a new club
by Jacob Winick
For college junior Madeline Moore, the cure to blood cancer is just a few thousand cheek swabs away. Last year Moore learned about the Gift of Life Marrow Registry, a 25-year-old nonprofit that fights blood cancer by creating a large tested donor database. This registry can be used by doctors when searching for potential bone marrow donors and by researchers working to find a cure. She signed up as Penn’s Campus Ambassador and began her work spreading awareness and getting cheek swabs for testing. To read the full article, click here.
November 2016: Israeli cancer patient meets her lifesaving US bone marrow donor
By Staff Writer
A former American participant of a Birthright trip this week met the Israeli woman suffering from cancer whose life he saved during his visit. Peter Schottenfeld visited Israel for the first time in 2007 on a Birthright educational tour. Along with many other participants, Schottenfeld gave a marrow sample to the bone marrow registry.Two years ago, the 30-year-old New Yorker was told by the US-based Gift of Life organization that his marrow was a match for 58-year-old leukemia patient Eti Brazilai from Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv. To read the full article, click here.
October 2016: A simple cheek swab may save a person's life
by Wendy Rhodes
When Robby Holroyd learned he was going to spend six hours tethered to a machine that would drain the blood out of one arm, process it, then return it to his body through the other arm, he was thrilled. “I felt like I won the lottery,” said the 24-year-old from Coral Springs. While attending a college dance marathon in 2011, Holroyd had his cheek swabbed at a booth run by Gift of Life — a non-profit, Boca Raton-based international bone marrow and blood stem cell registry dedicated to giving every person battling blood cancer a second chance at life. To read the full article, click here.
October 2016: SUNY students seek bone marrow donors
by Jessica Reynolds
A SUNY Oneonta graduate who started a successful on-campus bone marrow registry drive two years ago will return to Oneonta this week to help with the third installment of the event, organizers said Monday. Russell Lowe, 22, who spearheaded SUNY Oneonta's first registry event in 2014, now works as Community Engagement Coordinator for the Gift of Life Marrow Registry, an international foundation that sponsors the drives. To read the full article, click here.
October 2016: Swab Mob group helps to save lives in Saddle River
Middle school students at Saddle River Day School, located in Saddle River, partnered with the Gift of Life Marrow Registry to register volunteer marrow donors during the homecoming festivities. The "Swab Mob" worked under the direction of Gift of Life professionals and SRDS middle school faculty and staff volunteers. The event was inspired by Gift of Life Founder and CEO Jay Feinberg, who graduated from Saddle River Day School in 1986. To read the full article, click here.
October 2016: Teaneck Natives Serve as Gift of Life Campus Ambassadors
By Jennie Gans
It could be the plot of the next great Hollywood blockbuster. A young man from New Jersey is diagnosed with leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant to survive. He and his family exhaust every imaginable resource in an attempt to find his match. Since bone marrow matches often occur in those with similar ancestry and he is Jewish, the family conducted extensive genetic research, running drives internationally. Just as his family gave up, they had one last drive. The last person at the last drive turned out to be his match. To read the full article, click here.
September 2016: Effort to find bone marrow match for Jewish father with cancer goes viral
by Staff Writer
Adam Krief, a 31-year-old Israeli Jewish father of three of Los Angeles, is fighting for his life in a race to find a single bone marrow donor match as the only option to treat a rare form of blood cancer. The Krief family started a Facebook campaign called, Hope4Adam, urging people to register as a donor through Gift of Life Marrow Registry. To read the full article, click here.
September 2016: The Gift of a Lifetime
by Elizabeth Kratz
Adam Krief, a 31-year-old husband and father of three small children, with primary myelofibrosis, a type of leukemia, in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant. The Jewish bone marrow registry Gift of Life, which numbers more than a quarter of a million people, has yet to find a match for Adam. There are 26 million people listed in the various combined international bone marrow registries in which Gift of Life partners, but the global donor pool needs to have ethnic and racial diversity for matches to be made. To read the full article, click here.
September 2016: The gift of life from Montville to Hollywood
by Lisa Kintish
As soon as Jon Kayne learned about the global bone marrow registry while on a Birthright trip to Israel in 2012, he knew he would sign up. He provided the organization, Gift of Life Marrow Registry, with a DNA sample retrieved from swabbing the inside of his cheek. "It’s simple. It takes a minute or two," said Kayne, 25, who now lives in San Francisco, working for a tech start-up firm. Kayne’s stem cells were sent to Los Angeles and given to a man who was near death. Kayne would later learn his identity: Steven Bochco, the Emmy-winning creator of such television series as "Hill Street Blues," "L.A. Law" and "Doogie Howser, M.D." To read the full article, click here.
September 2016: Gift of Life Marrow Registry marks 25th anniversary saving lives
by Shelley Beneviste
Gift of Life Marrow Registry helps children and adults suffering from leukemia, lymphoma, other cancers and genetic disorders find matching donors for lifesaving blood and marrow transplants. In 2016, Gift of Life marked its 25th anniversary, and to celebrate, the organization adopted a bold new call to action. To read the full article, click here.
September 2016: Largest Q-tip breaks a record for World Marrow Donor Day
by Kristen Stephenson
A bid to drive volunteer bone marrow donors has resulted in a super-sized cotton wool bud setting a new world record for the Largest Q-tip. Having decided to achieve an incredibly large record to promote World Marrow Donor Day earlier this month, the Gift of Life Marrow Registry set out to create a huge Q-tip as the symbol for the cause as cotton wool buds are used to swab the inner cheek, which gathers cells of potential donors. to read the full article, click here.
September 2016: Students attempt to add diversity to donor registries
by Jace Bridges
On Monday, Gift of Life held their first donor drive of the year outside the William Pitt Union, where students completed an online survey, swabbed their own cheeks and sent their information to a lab to be officially entered into the Gift of Life donor registry. “We just want to find people who would likely be willing to donate if they got the life-saving call,” Alyssa Berman, Pitt’s Gift of Life president, said. Last year, the Gift of Life Club registered 892 people on Pitt’s campus. To read the full article, click here.
August 2016: The Mitzvah of Marrow Donation
By Leah Apothaker, Gift of Life Marrow Registry donor
In March of 2013, I volunteered to swab people’s cheeks for a bone marrow registry drive at a National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) conference. For a few hours, I sat behind a table and walked women through the easy steps of being swabbed. Near the end of my shift, I picked up a test kit and added myself to the registry. Then the event ended, and my life went on...Then I got my call. When The Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation told me that I was a potential match for an unrelated recipient, I actually wasn’t surprised; I always had the feeling they would call me one day, and when they did, I knew that I had to see this process through as far as it took me. To read the full article, click here.
August 2016: Cascade High grad donates bone marrow to stranger with cancer
by Sharon Salyer
One day last November, Michael Cizek walked out of a library on the University of Florida campus. The Cascade High School graduate was greeted by a fellow student who had a question. “Hey, can you do this cheek swab?” he was asked. The procedure is part of a registration program through Gift of Life. The Florida-based bone marrow registry program matches donors with patients fighting blood cancers, such as leukemia. “You probably won’t get a call, but if you do, you could save someone’s life,” Cizek was told. To read the full article, click here.
August 2016: Class of 2016 Profile: Lindsay Katz runs bone marrow drives
by Staff Member
With another successful commencement behind us, recent High Point University graduates are preparing to commence prestigious career paths around the world at Fortune 500 companies, international service programs, public school systems, top-tier law, medical and graduate school programs, and many other esteemed organizations thanks to their journey at HPU. Here’s a glimpse of one extraordinary senior from the Class of 2016: Lindsay Katz. Katz accepted a position as a Community Engagement Coordinator with Gift of Life, a registry for bone marrow donors, in Washington, D.C. To read the full article, click here.
August 2016: Donating bone marrow — why it's so important
by WMAR Staff
You've probably given blood before, or maybe you've even given a family member one of your kidneys. But donating bone marrow is probably not the first thing you think of when someone mentions the word 'donate.' Every four minutes, someone in the United States is diagnosed with a type of blood cancer. But all hope isn't lost — those lives could be saved with a bone marrow transplant.
Gift of Life Marrow Registry is determined to give everyone battling blood cancer a second chance at life. But they need your help. You can register to become a bone marrow donor and possibly save a life.
Anchor Kelly Swoope sat down with Alison Iovino, a former Baltimore Ravens cheerleader whose life was transformed after becoming a bone marrow donor. You can watch her story in the video by clicking here.
August 2016: Bone marrow recipient meets donor who saved his life
by Linda Figueredo
Imagine meeting for the very first person the person who saved your life. That is exactly what happened this evening at the Boca Raton Marriott at Boca Center, when a bone marrow transplant donor and the young recipient met for the first time. To watch the video and read the full article, click here.
July 2016: UF student donates bone marrow to save a life
by Ethan Bauer
Somewhere in the U.S., a 52-year-old man sat waiting, hoping a random person somewhere in the world would save his life. Leukemia was killing him, and he was in need of a bone marrow transplant — without it, he would likely die. Meanwhile, in suburban Seattle, an unknown number appeared on the phone of Michael Cizek, a 20-year-old UF finance junior. The caller told Cizek, who had previously signed up with Gift of Life Marrow Registry, there was a 30 percent chance he was a match for the man in need of bone marrow. To read the full article, click here.
July 2016: College student makes life-saving gift to stranger
By Thais Leon-Miller, Jewish Press
Almost two years to the day that Ryan Corning swabbed his cheeks to be added to the Gift of Life Marrow Registry, he walked into the John Theurer Cancer Center at the Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey and donated stem cells to a complete stranger. To read the full article, click here.
July 2016: Gift of Life Marrow Registry Performs Modern Miracles
By S. Mathur
July 2016: After years, Half Moon Bay man meets stem cell donor, Gift of Life registry connects cancer patient, match
By Samantha Wiegel
Andrew Michael and Carol Hatch may have only met in person for the first time in June, but their story truly began more than a decade ago as strangers living on opposite sides of the country who would forever change each other’s lives. The two have a lot in common, more than shared hobbies or religious backgrounds, Michael now carries Hatch’s stem cells and T-cells as he continues to battle non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. To read the full article, click here.
June 2016: Jay Feinberg speaking at the One-to-One Global Forum
May 2016: Saving a Life is Easier Than You Think
By Jay Feinberg
Twenty years ago this month, I received the incredible news that would save my life. An exhaustive four-year search for a compatible bone marrow donor had finally resulted in a match, and after a successful transplant, my battle with leukemia at last was over. It was that search for a match and the overwhelming outpouring of support I received that inspired me to establish the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation. To read the full article, click here.
March 2016: Equal Opportunity for Those Needing Bone Marrow Transplants
By Jay Feinberg
When I was diagnosed with leukemia in 1991, the doctor told me to go home and prepare my bucket list. While there was a cure for my disease — a bone marrow transplant — I would nonetheless die because I’d never find a matching donor, and the reason was because I was Jewish. At first I feared prejudice. Why, I asked, would my ethnicity impact my opportunity to benefit from the treatment that could save my life? The reason was simple: Tissue type is inherited, like eye or hair color. A patient’s best chance of finding a genetic match lies with those of similar ethnicity. To read the full article, click here.
January 2016: A blood cancer survivor meets her stem cell donor
by Kim Akel
Jill Ginsberg was diagnosed with blood cancer in 2012 by her medical oncologist at Texas Oncology. He referred her for an allogeneic transplant, which she had at our sister program in San Antonio, Texas. She received follow up care at our St. David’s CancerCare outpatient clinic, in Austin, and she soon became a favorite among patients and families as she volunteered in the hospital post-transplant. Jill met her stem cell donor, Jared Stein last year at the Gift of Life event in New York. To read the full article, click here.
