BETHLEHEM, Pa. --- The Moravian College football team will host its 5th Annual Be The Match Bone Marrow Donor Registration Drive on Thursday, April 24 from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. in Johnston Hall.
For the fifth straight year, the football squad has partnered with the Be The Match Foundation in participating in the Get in the Game, Save a Life Program. The goal of this partnership is to give everyone a chance to join the Be The Match Registry and the National Bone Marrow Donor Program Registry.
"We are excited to continue our partnership with the Be The Match Foundation," stated Head Football Coach Jeff Pukszyn. "We have had great success over the past few years and we're looking forward to another large turnout. The Get in the Game, Save a Life program is a great opportunity to positively affect people's lives and make an impact that reaches far beyond the football field."
This is a ten-minute process that includes filling out a medical history form and a painless cotton swabbing of the cheek. Moravian is looking for people from every background so more patients have a chance for a cure.
In 2010, Moravian registered 457 for the program including Stephanie Pezzello '13, a member Moravian's field hockey team. In June 2011, Pezzello was found to be a perfect match an 11-year-old with leukemia, and she had the surgery to make the donation shortly after that.
"I was so surprised to hear that I was a potential match, let alone an exact match," Pezzello explained. "When I got the final word that I was an exact match, there was no question, I had to do it. I would have never gotten this opportunity if it weren't for the football team holding the Be The Match donor registry drive at school."
Moravian has three other students that have been matched and gone through the procedure to donate bone marrow with juniors Rachel Knecht (Nazareth, Pa.), a former cheerleader, and sophomore Matt Adams (Easton, Pa.) each registering in 2012. Theresa Civitella '13 registered in 2011 and was notified she was a donor match last fall before going through the procedure.
"I would tell people that if you are on the fence about signing up, and I was one of them at first, it is something you should do because you have the potential to give someone a second chance at life," Knecht said. "The process you go through as a donor can't be any worse than the pain and suffering the person you are donating too has been going through."
The football program registered another 207 people in 2011 and with the 205 in 2012 and 168 last April, Moravian has accounted for a total of 1,037 registrations in four years.
For more information, contact assistant football coach Chris Leavenworth at 610-625-7955 or by email at cleavenworth@moravian.edu.
