Our Mission and Vision

The mission of Swab a Cheek, Save a Life is simple:

1. Recruiting minority donors: to increase the numbers of minority bone marrow donors enrolled in the bone marrow registry
2. Keeping donors enrolled: educating donors so they understand what they are committing to; keeping track of donors, as they relocate, so that they remain in the registry and available to anyone who is in need of a bone marrow transplant

Cancer is a random killer. It can strike any one of us at any time, regardless of gender, ethnicity, race or socioeconomic status.

But race and ethnicity do matter when it comes to curing cancer and other blood disorders.

Every year, 10,000 people need a bone marrow transplant to survive cancer and other blood and immune disorders. Tragically, many people do not have a matched donor to save their life. A patient's best chance of finding a genetic match lies with those of similar racial or ethnic background; but the numbers of minority donors are too few to help those in need. Consequently, for some minorities, most patients who need a transplant DO NOT receive a bone marrow transplant because they do not have a match in the registry.

Did you know that you can join the registry with a simple swab of your cheek?

We named ourselves Swab a Cheek, Save a Life, because it is that simple to enroll in the donor registry. Until recently, a blood test was required; now, all it takes is a simple swab of the inside of your cheek to be registered. Then someday YOU could be called to save someone’s life.

Swab a Cheek, Save a Life is a campaign working in conjunction with the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation. We believe that everyone who needs a bone marrow transplant should have an equal opportunity of finding a match. Currently, that isn't the case. And, as a young pioneer of expanding the registry once said, “No one should die because they do not have a donor.” – Allison Atlas, 1989.

Swab a Cheek, Save a Life is founded by several individuals with a variety of expertise ranging from community service to launching successful national corporations. More importantly, each of us is passionate about fighting racial disparities in the area of bone marrow transplantation. Two of the founders are transplant recipients who were fortunate enough to find a “perfect” match in the bone marrow registry. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Minorities are underrepresented in the bone marrow registry. So some people are told they need a bone marrow transplant, but can't have one because there is no match for them in the registry.

YOU can help us change the odds.

Please join us in a global movement to save lives. Swab a Cheek, Save a Life’s vision for the future is simple:
A match – anytime – anywhere - for anyone.
Become a member with a simple cheek swab today!

A Campaign of the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation

In order to further our mission of increasing the number of committed minority donors, Swab a Cheek, Save a Life chose to participate with the effective and respected, highly acclaimed Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation for several important reasons, but mostly because of the effective model Jay Feinberg, the founder of Gift of Life, and his family have developed. Our goal is to take this effective model, and reach out to all minorities; with Jay's experience and guidance, we know we can expand the registry so that no one in need of a bone marrow transplant has to ever hear their doctor utter the words “there is no match for you”.

An Inspiration and a Miracle

Jay Feinberg's story is nothing short of a modern-day miracle. When Jay was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 19 and told he would need a bone marrow transplant to survive, he had no idea that his personal journey would result in the establishment of a grass roots organization that would later save the lives of hundreds of patients in need. But that's precisely what happened.

Jay's story is one of transforming adversity into success. When he got sick, Jay was told that a transplant could save his life, but he would die needlessly because he had a zero percent chance of finding a matching donor. Genetic matches usually come from people of similar ethnic background. Unfortunately, the worldwide registry was not representative of all ethnic groups, and Jay was Jewish. There was an urgent need to add diversity to the registry, and time was of the essence.

The doctors were saying Jay could be cured, but there was no healthy donor that they knew of to save him. Jay's family and friends refused to accept this news, because this meant that Jay would die only because a needle in a haystack was yet to be found. So what did they do? They metaphorically got down on their hands and knees and searched for that needle. They wanted to find a match for Jay, so that regardless of his ethnicity, he could have the same opportunity as any other transplant patient to survive.

The Feinbergs and their friends worked tirelessly, and launched an ambitious grassroots donor recruitment campaign, resulting in the enrollment of 60,000 new donors in the worldwide registry. Their efforts generated new perfect matches for hundreds of patients in need; but after four years of searching, sadly there was still no match for Jay.

That's when his miracle happened. Jay's disease got to a critical stage, and he needed a transplant immediately. His time had run out. The Feinbergs were ending their search. One inspired young man, who watched the efforts of Jay's bone marrow drives save his own best friend, decided to run one last drive for Jay. He knew the odds were against him, but he was determined to return the gift that Jay's family had given his best friend.

In May of 1995, the very last donor tested at that very last drive, turned out to be Jay's miracle match, and provided his cure. The needle in the haystack was finally found! Jay received his transplant soon after at the world renowned Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle thanks to his miracle match, Becky, and a determined young man who believed in the power of one; that even in this very last bone marrow drive, and even in the 60,000th person tested, a match could be found to save Jay's life. Today, Jay is responsible for enrolling more than 190,000 new donors into the registry.

Move Your Feet for Swab a Cheek

Date: 4/17/2009

Two things stand out from that first day, seven years ago, when I heard the words “you have cancer." First, I remember dropping to the floor under the weight of those words, because I was unable to bear the load that had just dropped onto my 37 year old shoulders. My sister knelt beside me, but I could not be consoled. Anything that had been comforting in the past was suddenly ineffectual. I felt so lost. I stared achingly at my precious daughter, just six months old at the time, fearing I would not live to raise her.

Later that day, my very wise sister connected me with her friend who shared the same disease. Judi, a vital young mother of two, was living with lymphoma and sounded like she was really doing the “living” part well. I found fleeting comfort in speaking to someone who had this diagnosis and was not calling from the cemetery. I don't remember much about what Judi said to me that day. I'm sure wise words of wisdom were imparted; but all I really heard was “I'm living my life, I'm living my life, there's a charity road race we are going to run in, I'm living my life.”

Later that year, I realized why I clung so tightly to the idea of the road race. It was empowering. It was a way to take action. My family and I felt so helpless when I was diagnosed; we had so little control over so many things, including the progression of a disease and the health of my body – but having the road race and a fundraising goal allowed me and my family to “do” something. I could decide to act, to get involved. It was invigorating and made me feel powerful.

For the past 8 years, we have used the venue of a road race to raise over $800,000 for charity. But last year, I was unable to attend the road race. I couldn't participate because I was preparing for a personal marathon of my own – a bone marrow transplant. My chance at the “cure” had come, and I was hoping to seize it. In the time one has to spend during a transplant, contemplating everything that is meaningful and worthwhile in one's life, I realized that I needed another target in the future – another “road race” to hang onto, to prepare for, to get me through the year.

It was incredibly difficult to hear the words “you need to have a transplant;” but I was so fortunate, because I had a perfect match in the registry. And I started to think, what if I hadn't been so lucky? What if the Feinberg family hadn't done this great work building Gift of Life and I didn't have a match? My doctor told me, “15 years ago, you would have little or no chance of finding a match; but because you are Jewish, you have a great chance.” But what if I was African American, or Latino, or Asian, and my chances of finding a match were less than the odds of flipping ‘tails’ during a coin toss? To say the least, it is a disquieting thought…

This thought disturbed Evie Goldfine as well. She was/is my transplant hero. I watched her go through a bone marrow transplant nearly 4 years ago. Evie was saved by a transplant from a donor enrolled in the Gift of Life registry. She herself has served as a courier for GOL and has transported bone marrow as far as Israel. Evie embraces life with an infectious spirit that is transmitted in just one smile. Evie is getting me through my transplant. We have lots of time on the phone, we talk, we plan and we have decided to make an impact.

Sara Jane Harris, my dear friend, has been with me every step of the way of my bone marrow transplant…from cooking me dinners, to making sure I had just the right amount of obscene desserts stacked in my freezer. She knows how to “do” and to step up and sit beside you so you feel supported, even if the news isn't so good. Luckily for us, Sara Jane is a charismatic leader in community service, and has the energy of 3 or 4 people when it comes to seeing a project through. Professionally trained in education, she is highly experienced in developing educational curricula and helping local communities organize to accomplish their goals.

One day, it crystallized. Evie, Sara Jane and I had a phone call with the ever-inspiring Jay Feinberg, founder of Gift of Life. Together we discovered that some minority patients have less than 17% chance of finding a match in the World Wide Bone Marrow registry. Everyone should have an equal opportunity of finding a match. We wanted to take Jay’s model of what he did for Jewish patients and help other minorities. Under Jay’s tutelage, we believe we can make Swab a Cheek, Save a Life, a successful, independently funded campaign of Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation.

So, we are gathering our energy to “do” some more fundraising. We are hoping to give every person in search of a bone marrow donor an equal opportunity to find a match. To me, that means Road Race!

Please join us in one of Washington D.C.'s most popular runs – the Marine Corp Marathon. For those of you not quite up to the 26 miles, there is also a 10K Road Race, which is a 6 mile trek from the Nation's Mall (Washington Monument) to the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia. We invite you to run on Team Swab-a-Cheek on October 25, 2009.

Each runner is asked to raise a minimum of $500 by September 30, 2009. All it takes is getting 20 people to give you $25 in donations. In addition, there is a Marine Corps Marathon registration fee of $88 for the marathon or a $45 fee for the 10K Road Race.

Team Swab-a-Cheek has a limited number of slots available!

Funds raised by participants will support Swab a Cheek, Save a Life's mission: to enroll committed minority bone marrow donors so that everyone who needs a bone marrow transplant has an equal opportunity to find a donor in the world wide bone marrow registry. For more details or to sign up, contact Lisa Horowitz at   call us at 561 982-2919, or visit our website at http://www.swabacheek.kintera.org/mcm

Help raise money to swab more cheeks, and retain the cheeks we swab! Join Team Swab-a-Cheek today!

Swab a Cheek, Save a Life is an independently funded campaign of the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation. Written by Lisa Horowitz, Transplant Recipient

 

Gift of Life Today

There is a saying that reads, “Saving one life is like saving the entire world”. No truer words could ever describe the story of the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation. When Becky donated her bone marrow to Jay, she saved so much more than Jay's life because Gift of Life's mission did not end with Jay's successful transplant. There is another quote worth mentioning that Jay himself uttered from his hospital bed, in the midst of his transplant, “If I live through this, I am devoting my life to helping others who need transplants.” And that is what Jay does. The organization is as vibrant and dynamic today as the day it was founded.

Gift of Life is an associate donor registry of the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) and a participating member of the worldwide registry Bone Marrow Donors Worldwide. Gift of Life is accredited by the World Marrow Donor Association, and holds state tissue banking licenses required for its activities.

We chose to work with Gift of Life because they have been a leader in the world of donor registries and have done outstanding work in both recruiting and retaining minority donors. Gift of Life has been a leader in the world of donor registries. For more information on Gift of Life, visit www.giftoflife.org

Join Us!

Swab a Cheek, Save a Life's vision for the future is simple:

• A match.
• Anytime.
• Anywhere.
• For anyone.

Please join us in a global movement to save lives. Become a member with a simple cheek swab today!

Click here to join the registry with Gift of Life's online donor registration.