With bone marrow drives at ODPC (Sunday), GMU (Thursday), and Chesterbrook Taiwanese Presbyterian Church (CTPC) on Friday and Sunday, this past week was pretty busy. But with the help of the GMU Vietnamese Student Association, the staff and members of CTPC and friends who volunteered at each of the drives, 79 new donors were registered this week in honor of Janet Liang. By adding CTPC to the Team Janet East Coast drives from UMCP, UMBC, GWU, EVMS and GMU, that brings the total new East Coast registrants for Janet Liang to 347 people!
George Mason University Marrow Drive, Thursday, 2/23
I want to give a special shout out to Vinh Phan, a GMU student who really went above and beyond the call of duty to make the GMU drive a success. We had originally planned to host a drive at GMU as part of the multi-school Team Janet East Coast initiative on Valentines Day (which registered donors from UMCP, UMBC, GWU and EVMS) but unfortunately due to some last minute complications the drive fell through. Fortunately the drive was able to be rescheduled for Thursday evening and 29 total Mason students came out to swab! That brought the total for each school of the Team Janet East Coast initiative (UMCP: 73, UMBC: 62, GWU: 50, EVMS: 83 and GMU: 29) to 297 new donors! Thank you to each school that participated!
Chesterbrook Taiwanese Presbyterian Church, Friday (2/24) and Sunday (2/26)
A friend of mine from college felt convicted to reach out to me in early February about the possibility of running a drive at his home church after hearing of Janet’s circumstances and story. As a church with members of primarily Chinese/Taiwanese descent, I think Janet’s story resonated especially strong within the CTPC community. The members and staff at CTPC were extremely generous in their efforts to publicize and facilitate a successful drive at two separate services this past weekend. Not only did they introduce Janet’s situation and story to the congregation, but they also made it a priority to educate one another about the bone marrow registry, what the process involved, and the overarching need for donors of Chinese/Taiwanese descent.
With a congregation of roughly 80 people, CTPC registered a total of 50 bone marrow registrants this weekend. That is seriously a fantastic turnout. I know that the prospect of bone marrow donation can be an scary one to a lot of people, but despite any uncertainty CTPC really came out in full force to help others.
By adding both the Team Janet East Coast total and the donors from CTPC, that brings the total number of East Coast registrants for Janet Liang for the month of February to 347 donors!
As always, I’m extremely grateful to all the friends and friends-of-friends who came out to help swab registrants at each drive. Without you all these drives don’t happen, and I know it’s a sacrifice to spend your weekday nights or weekend afternoons volunteering. Thanks for your continued support!
