The Deeper Path

I have been working on bringing "Be The Match" bone marrow registry to our local Asian Festival for the first time.  Asian Festival has more than 100,000 visitors every year and I just thought it would be a great place to have a bone marrow registry drive to target the Asian population and thus boost the chance of finding a match for kids of Asian descent.  I didn't know who/what/how but I started by making phone calls and looking up contacts over the Internet.  I'm two weeks into doing this and I have made significant progress.  Asian Festival has agreed to give me a table at the health fair section and Be The Match's local account executive will work with me very closely and physically be present at the festival.  We have five weeks until the Asian Festival weekend and there's a lot to be done.  I have worked single-handedly but I started to gather a list of friends who said they are willing to help out.  Two most important tasks would be publicity and volunteer recruitment and training.

I want to share this because I think we parents thrown into this also need to figure out why.  I'm reading a book called the Deeper Path and found that turning hurt into heal is exactly what I'm doing.  I'm finding strength in myself that I was never aware of.  I have a pretty demanding full time job.  My kids are 5 yo and 4 yo -- the 4 yo is in maintenance.  I do not currently have help besides my husband.  We are juggling between work and taking kids to where they need to be.  However, I have found such desire to take ownership of whatever I do right now.  I see a problem, I see a solution, and I am part of the solution.  No more whining blaming or pointing fingers.  There are so many things that we can help with.  Even though our help seems so trivial considering the vastness of the problems, I am a strong believer in every little bit helps.  Start from myself.  Do my share.

Here are the things that will help us to run a successful drive:

*** Publicity
(1) contact different Asian mailing list (big university, big corporation, big organization, community mailing list)
(2) have a Facebook page to promote the event in social media
(3) be part of what Asian Festival will promote this year in their media releases

*** Volunteer training
(1) start a list, identify a few recruitment leaders, one in each area (work, Chinese community, OSU)
(2) arrange training from BTM AE at each site




If there's any local readers out there who want to be part of the effort, please contact me. Thank you!

Another level of involvement

Today I made a leap in terms of the involvement with the leukemia community.   I have been pondering about this idea for a while and I finally made the initial step today.

I often hear the lack of presence of Asian population in bone marrow registry.  I myself have been registered even before Lucas's diagnosis and it was such an easy process.   I hear a few stories of dying Asian Americans waiting desperately for a marrow match.  Watched some Youtube videos begging people go get registered -- very sad stories.

I'm having my fingers crossed that Lucas will stay in remission with chemotherapy.  But I am the kind of person who likes to act when there's work to be done.

So today is the day!  I got support from two wonderful community leaders within my company.  I made a call to www.asianmarrow.org to get educated on how to run a donor registry drive.  We have an action plan for May the Asian heritage month.  I want to educate the local community.  Numbers will grow one by one, day by day.

Two things planned:
(1) Lunch and Learn session at work
(2) Setting a table/booth in Asian Festival during memorial weekend

One common goal - get more Asians registered in bethematch!

Lots of work to be done in terms of logistics.  But it will be a great learning experience for me.  Hopefully I will get to do this for an ongoing basis.

Thank you so much for the support, my friends!