Abington Be The Match Registry Drive Seeks Match For Student

ABINGTON, PA — An upcoming event aims to find donor matches for individuals with blood, bone marrow, or immune system disorders.

The Be the Match registry drive will be held at Abington Senior High School on Oct. 29 from 2:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.

All you have to do is get a cheek swab, which is then tested to see if you are a potentially life-saving match for a patient with one of these diseases.

The drive is especially important to the Abington community as a senior student, Juwan, is currently fighting Hodgkins Lymphoma. In order to be cured, Juwan needs to find a match. A life-saving match will most likely need to be African-American.

Ethnically diverse patients are not as well represented in the registry, according to Be the Match, so growing the diversity of the pool is vital. Latino patients have a 46 percent chance of finding a match, Asian patients a 41 percent chance, African-American patients a 23 percent chance, and those of a mixed background, just a 15 percent chance.

The drive will be located in Abington Senior High School's Cafeteria B.