The Story

Annual Bone Marrow Drive Scheduled for Wednesday

Apr. 17, 2007 | By Stacey Marin, DSJ Executive Editor

Members of the Alan Bukzin Memorial Bone Marrow Drive. Courtesy of Bone Marrow Drive.

The 16th Annual Alan Buzkin Memorial Bone Marrow Drive will be held this Wednesday, April 18 from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the UC Chesapeakes. The drive at the College is the largest student-organized bone marrow drive in the country, and the committee is working to continue that success with Wednesday’s drive.

The process for participating in the drive is extremely easy, and you do not need to register before the event in order to participate.

�"The entire process of entering the registry only takes about 15-20 minutes,” Drive Chair Leigh Tally (’07) said. �"This is the first year that we have been able to do buccal (cheek) swabs [instead of taking a blood sample], so it’s filling out some paperwork and swabbing your cheeks and bam! You are in [the registry] until you are 60 years old!”

�"The 15-20 minutes that you donate on Wednesday could translate into extra years for someone in need of a bone marrow transplant,” Tally said. �"Throughout the past 15 years there have been about 220 potential matches made and about 70 students donated, so we are actually making matches here!”

According to Tally, the drive entered 1,000 people into the registry last year. The goal for this year is 2,000, which can be more easily attained by using buccal swabs.

According to the Bone Marrow Drive website, the drive began in 1991 when history professor Dale Hoak sought to find a matching marrow donor for Professor James Whittenburg. He succeeded, and his efforts were continued by Joe Buzkin (’94), who hoped to find a match for his brother, Alan, who suffered from leukemia.

The drive has organized numerous fundraising events throughout the year, including the Mr. William and Mary Pageant, a golf tournament and a screening of the �"The Newsies” that took place Monday at the Kimball Theater. The money raised through these events (about $70,000 a year) pays for the $52-a-person cost of the testing and registry, so everyone can be entered for free.

�"This is such an important cause and something where you can quite literally end up saving a life,” Tally said. �"Our drive has not been so successful for all of these years solely because of all of the volunteers, but because students on campus care and have the initiative to show up on drive day.”

For more information about the Alan Buzkin Memorial Bone Marrow Drive, visit the organization’s website at www.wm.edu/so/bonemarrowdrive/Site/Welcome.