By Jenny Rehkugler, Communications Specialist
Crane Lake was fortunate to host the Gift of Life Foundation during staff week to hold a cheek swabbing drive to collect cells from counselors and staff. Gift of Life’s mission is to collect and register cells from as many people as possible in order to hopefully find matches for people in need of bone marrow or blood cell transplants.
Gift of Life was founded by Jay Feinberg who found himself needing a bone marrow transplant after he was diagnosed with leukemia. Since Jay’s brothers unfortunately were not matches, he had to look elsewhere for a donation. When Jay talked to his doctors, they gave him additional bad news that it would be very difficult to find a genetic match because he was Jewish.
Donations of bone marrow need to come from people with similar ethnicities and backgrounds. Since there are very few Jewish people in the world it was going to take a lot of perseverance for Jay to find a match. Not willing to give up, Jay started his own registry to help find his match. That registry is now the Gift of Life, which helps save many people’s lives all around the world.
Crane Lake was honored to support Gift of Life’s efforts of registering more people to help find matches. Counselors and staff learned that by swabbing their cheeks, the Gift of Life could pair them up with a patient in need. Blood cells and bone marrow donations can save lives. It is our mission as Jews to repair the world, and it is important to give our counselors and staff an opportunity to do so.
“I’m swabbing today because it could possibly lead to saving someone’s life,” Maddie Hines, a first year general counselor said. “I feel good about doing this and I’m happy CLC is providing me this avenue.”
When asked if she would go through with the bone marrow or blood cell donation, Maddie had no hesitation at all.
“I would absolutely donate if I were called,” she said. “I’d be scared, but I couldn’t say no.”
The registry that came to Crane Lake was considered to be a Jewish registry but was not exclusive to Jewish people only. The more people registered with the Gift of Life, the better the chances of connecting pairs.
Alec Burkin, Gift of Life’s special projects coordinator, helped run the drive and was happy to be doing it at a Jewish summer camp.
“This drive reflects the values taught at camp like the Jewish ideal ‘Pikuach Nefesh’ or ‘saving a life’,” he said. “This is by far the most important thing to teach.”
Crane Lake plans to continue teaching Jewish values throughout the summer to both counselors and campers. For as the Talmud teaches, “he who has saves a single life saves the world.”
For more information on the Gift of Life and ways to get involved, please visit www.giftoflife.org.