Gift of Life Marrow Registry celebrated its 11th annual World Marrow Donor Day (WMDD) on September 20. This annual day of recognition thanks donors worldwide for volunteering to save lives.
The first WMDD was organized in 2014 by the World Marrow Donor Association (WMDA), which sets international standards for registry operations and manages the worldwide database of donors. Doctors and transplant centers can search the database in the hope of finding matching donors for their patients. Today, more than 42 million volunteers are active in the worldwide registry database.
Even so, not every patient can find a matching donor due to low representation of their ethnic groups in the registries. WMDA emphasizes that many more donors from a wider diversity of ethnicities and genetic heritages are urgently needed to save more lives.
This fall, Gift of Life introduced “Hero Gum,” a new way of collecting tissue samples from potential donors who are joining the registry. Designed to remove barriers to registration and engage more diverse, younger audiences, Hero Gum reframes the donor sign-up process as quick, accessible, and even fun.
This innovative new way to become a registered donor without having to swab or give a blood sample has proved to be popular at the registration table and caused much interest among registries worldwide.
WMDD also has an edible component: a “cake-off” contest between the member registries of the World Marrow Donor Association. This year, Gift of Life blew up our Hero Gum from pack-sized to sheet cake-sized with a giant replica – which turned out to be delicious!
Donors in Gift of Life’s collection center were delighted to learn it was their special day, and shared in the joy, even as they donated stem cells.
World Marrow Donor Day is always a special day for our dedicated staff, who are committed to making sure every donor who registers with us is treated with the utmost care, attention, and respect. Our donors save lives by giving a small amount of their cells, and that's still a miracle to every one of us. Thank you, donors!
Please join us again on September 19, 2026, as we thank donors for saving millions of lives.