Join the Marrow Donor Registry
Take the first step to become a bone marrow donor. Join the Be the Match RegistrySM and you could be the one to save a life.
Click here to join the registry
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National Marrow Donor Program
Basketball icon, Shaquille O’Neal, challenges the public to step up and save a life. To learn more, click here.
Someone Needs You. Join the Be The Match MarrowSM Registry.
More than 35,000 people face life-threatening diseases that can only be cured with a blood stem cell transplant. Most patients do not have a match in their family. To survive, they need a transplant from an unrelated donor. You may be their only hope for a cure.
Every day, more than 6,000 people desperately search the marrow registry for a lifesaving donor. These are our moms and dads and grandparents, our brothers and sisters, our children and friends.
Only 4 out of every 10 patients receive the transplant that could save their lives, in large part because there is no match for them.
What is a bone marrow or blood stem cell transplant?
Marrow produces the blood-forming cells that transplant patients need. The immature marrow stem cells can develop into any of the cells present in the blood stream: red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. There are three sources of blood stem cells: bone marrow, the circulating blood (called PBSC) or umbilical cord blood. Your healthy donor cells go directly into the patient’s bloodstream. The cells travel to the marrow, where they begin to function and multiply.
How do you join the registry?
If you’re in good health, between the ages of 18 and 60, and are willing to help save the life of a patient in need, it’s simple:
Complete a registration form, provide contact information, health history, and a signed agreement to join the Registry.
Give a sample of cheek cells using 4 sterile cotton swabs to be sent for tissue-typing.
If you qualify as a potential match to a patient, you will be contacted to confirm your commitment, update your health history and have further testing to see if you are the best match.
If you are the best match and asked to donate:
You are given a complete physical exam to make sure a donation is safe for both you and the recipient. You are invited to a meeting to answer any questions.
There is no cost to the donor for physical exam, the assessment or the donation itself. To the recipient, and their loved ones, you will forever be regarded as a hero.
The total cost to add a new member to the Be The Match registry is about $100. RRVBC is committed to making the registry available to all who wish to join. RRVBC must raise these monies to support our community and this program. While we host the Annual Red Shoe Run for Donor Awareness raising funds to pay some of these costs, we still need contributions from individuals, organizations and corporations. We need YOU – Your tax-deductible gift helps add more members to our registry, making lifesaving transplants a reality.
To help, download a registration and consent form. Bring the completed, signed form to one of the Rock River Valley Blood Center’s four locations click here. For more information, call 1-877-RRVBC-99 or email bethematch@rrvbc.org.
A special thanks to the Rockford East Rotary for contributing to the Rock River Valley Blood Center’s Be the Match Program. These funds are used to pay for tissue typing costs so that more potential matches can join the registry.