Mike Laperriere (left) and Isaac Whitworth were among the volunteers at Northeastern's Bone Marrow Registration Drive Wednesday.

NU football team holds Bone Marrow Drive
April 9, 2009
Boston, Mass.

The Northeastern University football team hosted a Bone Marrow Drive on Wednesday, April 8 to help the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) find possible donors for patients in need of transplants.

On any given day, more than 6,000 men, women and children are searching the NMDP Registry for a life-saving donor. These patients have leukemia, lymphoma and other life-threatening diseases that can be treated by a bone marrow or cord blood transplant. For many of these patients, a transplant may be the best and only hope of a cure. The test is a simple cheek swab -- no blood or needles are involved.

The Huskies’ event took place at Solomon Court, and with the help of the football team, over 400 people signed up to get tested and become potential donors, the second consecutive year that Northeastern has successfully registered at least 400.

The football team's operations director Sarah Gigantino organized the event, which featured a raffle for Red Sox tickets and a Northeastern parking pass. She praised the football team for its effort in helping out the good cause.

"The efforts of the players did not go unnoticed", Gigantino said. "People like Jon Jeune and Yaroslav Mukha put forth an unbelievable amount of leadership and enthusiasm. We had great representation from across the university and look forward to meeting the entire effort's goal of getting 5,000 people registered."

More information on the NMDP can be found at Marrow.org.