2024 marks the 10th anniversary of the program. Beginning as a pilot in 2014 and rapidly became a highly regarded internship program, Gift of Life’s Campus Ambassador Program helped grow the registry with the most often requested demographic of donors: 18- to 35-year-olds. To date, CAPs have swabbed more than 118,000 new donors for the registry at recruitment drives, resulting in more than 6,800 matches for patients, and 730 completed, lifesaving stem cell and marrow transplants.
For two education-packed days, students learn about managing volunteers, running recruitment drives on their campus, and the science that makes curing blood cancer through transplantation possible. Students also toured the state-of-the-art Adelson Collection Center and visited each department at Gift of Life to understand how the registry helps to save so many lives.
This year, the curriculum added in-depth sessions on partnering with other on-campus organizations to hold drives, becoming a registered student organization on campus, and how to recruit the most enthusiastic donors who will respond with a “yes” when they are matched with a patient.
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The training also covered how to hold a Mega Drive event, typically running for four-five days on a college campus to raise visibility and bring in a large number of donors at once.
The CAPs often take advantage of the week leading up to World Marrow Donor Day to spread awareness of the need for donors and invite their peers to join Gift of Life for a chance to help someone in need. World Marrow Donor Day is an international day of recognition on the third Saturday of September each year, honoring everyone worldwide who has volunteered as a blood stem cell or marrow donor.
This fall, 604 Campus Ambassadors will represent Gift of Life at 160 universities and colleges across the country. These college students are personally drawn to support Gift of Life’s mission to ensure that every person needing a blood stem cell or marrow transplant has a donor available in the registry.
“For a decade the Campus Ambassador Program has been successful far beyond our expectations,” said Gift of Life’s Donor Recruitment Director Chris Camacho, who leads the program. “We have CAPs who have become donors themselves, we have others who have organized weeklong Mega Drive events that recruit thousands of donors per semester. The passion of the CAPs for our mission and their dedication to saving lives is incredible.”
During the fall semester, the CAPs will be making educational presentations about the registry’s mission, and running hundreds of recruitment drives to add new donors and diversify the registry. A listing of upcoming drives and their locations, sortable by state, may be accessed on our Events page.
If you or a family member would like to become a Campus Ambassador, please visit our website for more information and to apply.