A Fight for Survial
After a successful semester running our Be the Match Bone Marrow Drive, the brothers of Alpha Beta colony strived for more this year as we approach our two year anniversary. As a primary philanthropy of Delta Epsilon Psi, it is important for us the spread the word of the Be the Match initiative nationwide. As the first Midwest colony, we have begun spreading the word here in Detroit: register to help save a life. The fight continues, but a successful week in October helped boost confidence in an area desperate for good news.
The National Bone Marrow drive is a collaborative effort to help raise awareness for patients who are in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant. Only half of patients that need bone marrow transplants actually receive bone marrow from a donor. There are several reasons for this, yet a primary reason is that people do not understand the commitment level when signing up for Be the Match. Many people believe that once you sign up and donate cheek swabs, if you are matched, you are required to donate your bone marrow. That is very much untrue, as you have the right to back out at any point. We have been struggling to get that point across here at Wayne State University, where we run our bone marrow drive during the same time as the Red Cross Blood Drive and other medical oriented help services. This semester, however, we emphasized the fact that registering is not a commitment and is a pain free process. Also, once people actually reached out to come see us, we gave them far more information in person about the national drive for bone marrow and the actual process to extract bone marrow. These helped us register more people than the previous semester and we far surpassed our goal of registering over 150 people, which was last year’s number.
In other related philanthropic news, the brothers of Alpha Beta colony recently became a bronze star school by JDRF, after donating over $1400 dollars to the foundation. This was done through our fundraisers at Buffalo Wild Wings, various bake sales around campus and social events throughout the summer and this semester. We strive for success in everything that we do, something that has been instilled in our minds after joining Delta Epsilon Psi. We believe that being leaders today will help make a difference in our community. As we spread our fraternity’s views and show our community that our nation needs helps with diabetes and bone marrow, we continue to stay strong and fight for success.
--
Neal Gandhi
Alpha Beta Colony
