First cousins Lily Shubach and Zac Grossman grew up together and are very close. They both attend Beck Middle School in Cherry Hill, N.J., and when it came time to prepare for their b’nai mitzvah, the Jewish coming-of-age ceremony at age 13 for boys and age 12 for girls, they chose to do it together.
“A mitzvah project is done before a bar or bat mitzvah to allow us to give back to the community, and we chose Gift of Life Marrow Registry as our project,” said Zac. “We went through the entire process together.”
There is also a family connection to Gift of Life’s mission to cure blood cancer: out of the blue their grandfather was diagnosed with leukemia in December 2022.
“Our pop is sick with leukemia so we were hoping that during our drives we’d find someone who would be able to donate to him,” said Lily.
“But, even if a match for our pop isn’t found at our drives, we know we are still helping others in need,” added Zac.
Fortunately, their grandfather’s condition is already improving.
“He’s doing okay,” said Zac’s mother, Laurie Grossman. “He received an autologous bone marrow transplant using his own cells and it went well. There have been a few complications, he developed pneumonia after the transplant, but overall it went well and his numbers are going up.”
Zac and Lily decided to run donor recruitment drives to help add more potential lifesavers to the registry. They invited people who are part of their congregation to come out and swab, and told classmates and teachers about the drive at their school.
“We set up a recruitment drive at our congregation, Congregation Beth El in Voorhees, N.J.,” said Lily. “We had people completing the swab kits and we sent them back to Gift of Life where the donors were added to the registry. Now, if they ever match a patient, we’ll be notified of the match! We also worked at educating people as they came to see our mitzvah project.”
“On top of all the swabbing, we raised more than $1,800, enough for 30 new donor kits,” added Zac. “Every single person who joins Gift of Life has a chance to save someone’s life. Every swab is so important, and that money will pay for more of them. We are also looking forward to doing more drives during our next school year.”
The cousins are not the first ones in their family to be involved with Gift of Life.
Lily’s mother, Stacy Shubach, joined Gift of Life as a donor 10 years ago, and has matched with patients three times during that decade. She donated peripheral blood stem cells in 2011 to help a man battling lymphoma, but did not end up donating to the other two matches.
“I’m just incredibly proud of both Lily and Zac,” said Stacy. “They chose a project that meant so much to them and have that drive to help others in need. And as you mentioned, this project is especially important to me as I was a donor through Gift of Life so I feel like this has come full circle.”
“We’re super proud of our kids,” said Laurie. “When we knew that doing a mitzvah project was coming up, this was something the kids wanted to do, and they took the lead on it. They engaged with the donors, they answered their questions. I think this helped them get a new appreciation for being healthy, and it’s important to help other people when they aren’t healthy.”
Zac is in seventh grade and both plays soccer and swims in addition to playing guitar. He is considering engineering as a college major after high school.
Lily is also in seventh grade and enjoys playing soccer and basketball for both the youth league and the school. She is interested in a career in medicine, either as a doctor, veterinarian or nurse saying, “I want to help people and/or animals in need.”