Mobile Bone Marrow Donor Drive Set at Joe Bullard Cadillac to Help Local Leukemia Fighter

A bone marrow donor drive will be held Friday, Sept. 24, from 9 a.m. to noon at Joe Bullard Cadillac on Airport Boulevard in Mobile — an effort organized to help find a match for a Mobile native battling leukemia.

The drive uses Be the Match’s self-administered cheek swab kits, which are sent to the registry for typing in hopes of finding a transplant match for Dani Lorson.

Lorson, the daughter of Robin Stafford, a longtime Joe Bullard employee, graduated from McGill-Toolen and danced at Sheffield Dance Studio. She has fought leukemia for six and a half years and is heading into her third remission and second stem cell transplant.

After completing a full year of recovery from last year’s transplant, Lorson learned the leukemia had returned, attacking the two percent of her own marrow that remained. Doctors believe another stem cell transplant is her best path forward, but she has been told no match currently exists for her in the registry.

Be the Match operates the world’s largest listing of potential marrow donors and donated cord blood units, serving patients with leukemia, lymphoma, and other diseases requiring marrow or cord blood transplants. Supporters can join the registry, contribute financially, or volunteer, and the organization provides resources to patients and families before, during, and after transplant.

About the registry

Be The Match was operated by the National Marrow Donor Program, a nonprofit founded in 1986 and based in Minneapolis. The organization has since retired the Be The Match name and now operates as NMDP.

The tissue markers used to match donors with patients are inherited, so patients are most likely to find a match with a donor who shares their ancestry. That is why registry drives seek donors from a wide range of backgrounds.