Event Recap - Mandi Schwartz Marrow Donor Registration Drive

April 20, 2017
The Yale Athletics department hosted its annual Mandi Schwartz Marrow Donor Registration Drive on Thursday, April 20, adding 462 potential life-savers to the Be The Match Registry®. The Yale Family Network was one of the sponsors of this year’s Drive.
 
Yale’s drives are part of the “Get in the Game. Save a Life.” program, which includes 78 schools nationwide. Those “Get in the Game. Save a Life.” drives have added more than 7,000 potential marrow donors already this year, with Yale’s drive the largest to date. Yale itself has now added a total of 6,443 people to the registry in nine years of doing drives, and at least 30 donor matches for patients with life-threatening illnesses have been located through these efforts.
 
The Yale drive is named in memory of women’s ice hockey player Mandi Schwartz ’10 (Wilcox, Sask.) (1988-2011), whose courageous battle with cancer has inspired the Bulldogs’ efforts. The Yale athletic department has held drives every spring since Mandi was first diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in December of 2008. In the weeks leading up to the drive members of the teams involved helped spread the word about the need for donors to their classmates, friends and relatives. On the day of the drive, they volunteered at the various stations set up to assist potential donors with the registration process. 
 
Mandi’s story has been one of the driving forces behind the Yale drives. Unable to find a matching adult marrow donor, in September 2010 she required a stem cell transplant using two anonymously donated units of umbilical cord blood. A biopsy in December 2010 indicated that she had relapsed, and she passed away at home in Saskatchewan on Apr. 3, 2011.
 
You can visit the Be The Match Registry website at www.BeTheMatch.org.