Host a Drive

(via A3M)
What is a bone marrow drive?
A bone marrow drive is an organized effort to inform, educate, and recruit potential marrow donors for the National Registry. Drives can be set for as short as 2 hours or as long as 6 hours. Once a donor is recruited, he/she is entered into the national database and remains on the registry until his/her 61st birthday and may be asked to donate marrow/blood cells to someone he/she does not know.

There is an URGENT need to register and educate more people in the Asian Pacific Islander (API) community. You and your community can help save the life of another person in need. The process of setting up a drive is easy.

1. A date, time and location should be the first thing to be established.  Any place that has high traffic (Asians in particular) such as
          - Churches/Places of Worship
          - Colleges/Universities/Schools (student organizations)
          - Companies/Organizations/Workplaces
          - Festivals/Community Events
          - Any large gathering of people
          - Community Centers
Some drives may have a larger turnout than others, but any event resulting in ~30 or more new registrants is worthwhile.

2. Contact us at savematthew@gmail.com, and we help you plan the drive by referring you to a bone marrow donor recruitment organization in your area. The recruitment organization will provide all the forms, support and training that you’ll need during your drive. Drives can be set up within a week depending on where you are located, but it is preferred to give 2-3 weeks notice so that proper planning and promoting can be done.

3. Make sure you have a few tables, chairs, and 4-10 volunteers, depending on how large an event it will be. With the help of volunteers, drives are usually more successful. Volunteer work mainly entails handing out flyers, helping people with registration forms, and supporting the recruitment organization representative(s).

4. Promote your drive.  Marrow drives are more successful when publicizing the event a week or two before the actual date.  Newspapers, radio, television, flyers, posters, e-mail and press releases are various ways to promote the drive to let people know when and where it will take place.  You can download customizable Team Matthew flyers (HERE) and personalize you message to others.

5. Try to educate people on the registration and donation process. It might be good to stress that registering only requires filling out a form, 4 quick cotton swabs of the inside of their mouth, and that 70% of all bone marrow transplants can be done entirely through the blood.

6. Send details of your drive to savematthew@gmail.com as soon as possible so we can provide support, keep tabs on the Team Matthew-specific registrations and update our calendar of drives.

Do not hesitate to contact us with any questions.