Giving back

Jeremiah Craft donated blood stem cells to save a stranger’s life.

Each year, over 10,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with life-threatening blood diseases like leukemia, lymphoma, or sickle cell anemia and need a stem cell transplant to survive.

Because the best matches are usually found within a patient’s ethnic background, Black, Latinx, and other communities of color are drastically underrepresented in the national registry — making it harder for patients of color to find the donor they need.

That’s been the case for my dad, a Black Panamanian Navy veteran. He was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia — and we haven’t yet found a donor willing and available to give the stem cells that could save his life.

This month, for African-American Bone Marrow Awareness Month, I’ll be sharing ways we can change that. It starts with us.

(And if you know you want to donate, text LOU4LIFE to 61474 to start the process.)