Minority marrow drive seeks donors

Campus organizations donated time yesterday to raise awareness about the lack of minority volunteers available for bone marrow donation.

Members of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity and the Minority Marrow Donor Coalition focused their efforts on encouraging minority and bi-racial students to explore their options as donors for bone marrow transplants.

"Up until a couple years ago if you were multiracial and had a life threatening disease which required a bone marrow transplant, you probably couldn't get one because of a lack of donors," said MMDC President Jermaine Stephens.

Kappa Alpha Psi members joined American Red Cross volunteers and MMDC members to campaign in the Michigan Union yesterday encouraging students to sign up for consideration as bone marrow donators.

The prospects of finding an appropriate minority donor in recent years hasn't improved greatly, but many more minorities are registered, Stevens said.

ALLISON CANTER/Daily LSA senior Cameron Diggs gives blood to register for the Minority Marrow Donor Coalition yesterday in the Union. The program seeks minority students to place their names on the donor bank list.

Kappa Alpha Psi President Mike Muse, an Engineering senior, was on hand with other fraternity members to make sure the donor drive ran smoothly.

He said the fraternity worked to inform campus minority groups of the drive and the importance of minority donors, and also passed out fliers to publicize the event.

"One of our objectives is to bring social awareness to the community about minority issues and we realized that the number of donors with a minority background was as small as 16 percent of the total number of donors," Muse said.

The goal for the day, Muse said, was to sign up 200 people for blood donations and addition to the donor bank of names for marrow donation.

Volunteers for the blood tests were waived the $45 sign-up fee, which was paid for by the Red Cross. The fee covers testing and lab costs of the blood sample.

Stevens said a common misconception about the drive is that donors give bone marrow at the sign-up, but only a teaspoon's worth of blood is necessary from each person so that they can be placed in the donor bank.

After being added to the donor bank, the donors can be called upon to give approximately 5 percent of their bone marrow if the need should ever arise. Bone marrow donors are called upon when a patient with matching blood type needs a transplant.

The donor bank is usually used as a second option after family members have been ruled out as donors.

Although the drive focused on minority donors, Muse said everyone was encouraged to volunteer for the donor bank.

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