How Much To Register A Bone Marrow Donor

UCLA football held an outcome to recruit members for a national marrow donor registry Friday.

The Get in the Game, Save a Life event was hosted on Bruin Walk in collaboration with Be The Match and the Andy Talley Os Marrow Foundation. More 160 college football teams around the country host these drives to annals donors, said Ryan McNamee, the director of football operations. At UCLA, 400 people were registered, McNamee said in an emailed statement.

A bone marrow transplant is a method to help generate healthy cells and eliminate cancer, according to UCLA Wellness. Individuals with blood-related diseases and cancers – such as leukemia, lymphoma and sickle cell disease – tin can exist treated with a transplant.

Be The Match is a nonprofit organization that works to find bone marrow matches for patients in need, said Katherine Lopez, a recruitment coordinator for the organization.

At the event, individuals conducted a digital sign-up for the registry and cocky-administered a cheek swab. This data will be put into a database to evaluate if they could exist a potential match for a patient, Lopez said.

"When you lot get football game coaches and football players together for a goal, they're merely gonna assault information technology head-on … with positive energy and determination," McNamee said at the event.

[Related: Shortage of claret donors continues to affect patients with sickle cell disease ]

Finding a match is not as simple as matching a claret blazon, Lopez said, adding that a person must have near-identical genetic traits as a patient to authorize as a lucifer. About 1 in 220 people who join the registry match with a patient, she said.

"That'southward why we do events similar this," Lopez said. "The more than people nosotros're able to bring to annals, maybe the more hope we take to find a lucifer for somebody."

Students walk by the event on Bruin Walk. (Noah Danesh/Daily Bruin)

Throughout the day, UCLA football players encouraged those walking on Bruin Walk to take a few minutes out of their day to discover out if they could save a life, said Kevin Jordan, manager of player development for UCLA football.

"These guys have been blessed with a smashing opportunity to play sport, and they're healthy, strong and they accept been given so much," Jordan said. "This is just the smallest thing that they could practise – to just surrender their time to attempt to assistance somebody else in the world."

The setup included a large LED screen encouraging donors, besides as the Victory Bell – the trophy the team won afterwards its victory over USC terminal fall – which the players rang post-obit new sign-ups. Local restaurants, including Fat Sal's and Lamonica'due south NY Pizza, donated nutrient for the donors and the team members.

McNamee, who helped coordinate Friday's event, said the players' teamwork paralleled skills they utilize on the field.

"Function of the dynamic of this is educational activity our players to be out in the community and how they tin work together for a mutual goal," he said. "As we're working together collectively, we go people to jump in."

This was the team's first customs effect in two years, McNamee said, following a intermission considering of the pandemic. He added that many players were energized and excited to be out on campus connecting with students.

The team wanted to bring the campus together to aid others, said quarterback Justyn Martin. Martin, a kickoff-twelvemonth advice student, said joining the registry is a quick fashion to work toward potentially saving a life.

"Nosotros're just trying to relieve some lives, one step at a fourth dimension," he said. "It takes five minutes."

[Related: UCLA medical centers seek blood donors for liver transplant patients amid shortage ]

Linebacker Devin Aupiu said hosting the event on Bruin Walk allowed the team to capture the attention of many students passing by. Aupiu, a 2nd-year psychology student, added that it was important to include UCLA football game in this consequence because of the platform the team has.

Matt Ford, who was visiting the campus Friday, said he was compelled by the excitement of the football game players to bring together the registry. Ford added that he was surprised by how quick and elementary the process was.

Bruins such as Savannah Ellerson, a first-yr sociology student, were besides drawn in by the team and appreciated the opportunity to participate.

"Their free energy coupled with knowing that it's going for a good cause merely made me feel actually good about what I just did," Ellerson said.

Offensive lineman Siale Taupaki, a third-year political science student, said his biggest goal of the twenty-four hour period was to have people know the result is more than giving out gratuitous nutrient and other rewards – it was about helping others.

"Information technology might be small to others," Taupaki said. "But to those in need, information technology'due south pretty big."