Football team to register for Be the Match

Members of the Grand Valley football team will have the opportunity to potentially save a life by registering to become a bone marrow donor March 1. 

Michigan Blood will conduct sampling of the group from 2-3 p.m. in the team room in the building located off the north end zone of Lubbers Stadium on the Allendale Campus.

Be the Match recruits potential bone marrow donors for people around the world. Patients diagnosed with life-threatening diseases, like leukemia or lymphoma, are often in need of a transplant, such as a blood stem cell (marrow) transplant. A suitable match is found outside of a patient's family 70 percent of the time.  

The 20-minute registration process includes a cheek-swab and simple questionnaire. Then donors are entered into a database and contacted if they match a patient.  

The drive is facilitated by Spectrum Health Cancer Center, which opened the only adult blood and marrow transplant program in West Michigan three years ago. Donors are needed for adult and pediatric programs.