Delete Blood Cancer Kicks Off Campaign Inspired by Giovanni

By Michael A Guglielmo 

Baby Giovanni Guglielmo inspired over 45,000 New Englanders to register as bone marrow donors in the last six years from which over 175 New Hampshire and New England people donated their lifesaving stem cells to others suffering the lethal ravages of blood cancer.

His is the largest family bone marrow drive in the United States and Giovanni will not go quietly into the night if his parents and Delete Blood Cancer have their way.

To date the non-profit founded by Katharina Harf whom lost her mother to leukemia when she was just 14, has registered more people in New Hampshire, 1 in every 80, or 1.22 percent of the population, than any other state in the country. Worldwide, over three million people facilitating over 34,000 bone marrow transplants.

In fact, Delete has registered more people in New England than any other region of the country and the match ratio, 1 in every 257 registered donors, is extraordinary. Katharina read about six-month-old Giovanni’s life struggling sickness  in December of 2006, and called his family offering to donate the HLA registration kits for the drives they organized to save Giovanni, and donated over 3 million dollars for HLA testing. New England is rich with western European heritage, which is the ethnicity that has the greatest chance of finding a lifesaving bone marrow match. New England is truly the life lifesaving states.

Thus, Delete Blood Cancer is launching a New England campaign to push its Baby Giovanni inspired bone marrow registrations from 45,000 to 100,000 to honor this first year of 5-year-old Giovanni’s tragic death beginning with bone marrow drives throughout New Hampshire and Massachusetts listed below. 670 people have registered since April 1.

Finally, there will be a graveside memorial for Giovanni at 5 p.m. on April 15, the date of Giovanni’s death, at Pine Grove Cemetery on Brown Avenue in Manchester. 

Here is a list of the blood drives this month. Please come by, have yourself swabbed, and save a life: 

• April 16: Hillsborough Nursing Home, noon to 5 p.m.
• April 17: , 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• April 17: The Office Suites and TLC, Loudon Rd, Concord, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
• April 17: Bambino's Pizza, Depot Street, Concord, noon to 8 p.m.
• April 17: Community Service Council of NH, 79 Sheep Davis Road, Concord, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• April 17: New England College, Henniker, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
• April 18: University of Mass at Amherst, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
• April 18 Amherst College, MA, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• April 18 Mount Holyoke College, MA 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and 5 to 8 p.m.
• April 19: University of Mass at Amherst, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
• April 19: Amherst College, MA 11 a.m. to 5
• April 19: Mount Holyoke, MA 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 to 8 p.m.
• April 19: Delta Dental Road Race, Concord at NHTI, 6 to 9 p.m.
• April 20: University of Mass at Amherst 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (20 student matches to date)
• April 20: Friends of Forgotten Children Pub Crawl, Concord, 6 p.m.
• April 23: Hampshire College, MA 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• April 23: Worcester Polytechnic Institute, MA 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• April 25: Blake’s, Wine Studio, Plaza bone marrow drive, Manchester, noon to 8 p.m.
• April 27: Cheryl’s Haircuts, Northwood, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• April 27: St Anselm College, Manchester, 3 to 8 p.m. (Five student matches to date)
• April 27: Wounded Warriors Motorcycle Run, Boston, MA noon to 4 p.m.
• April 27: Boxboro, MA, MMA Fight
• April 29: Daniel Webster College Red Cross Blood Drive, Nashua, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• April 29: Salem State University, MA, 1 to 5 p.m.