Bone Marrow Drive Tuesday Aims to Save Toddler's Life

Proving that a motherly instinct knows no bounds, a Huntington Woods mom has organized a bone marrow drive Tuesday in an effort to help save the life of toddler in New York.

Nancy Kleinfeldt of Huntington Woods was inspired to take action after hearing about Ayelet Galena, who has battled a weakened immune system since she came home from the hospital a year and a half ago. The little girl suffers from a rare bone marrow disorder and needs a transplant to survive.

Unfortunately, neither Ayelet's family members nor donors on the national Bone Marrow Registry were matches for her.

"It touched me," said Kleinfeldt, a mother of three. "I have kids, and I just thought, if this was my child – God forbid – you'd have to rely on people."

So she worked to organize the bone marrow drive that will be held from 7 a.m.-noon Tuesday at Akiva Hebrew Day School in Southfield.

"Really, every single individual should go out there and be on the registry," she said. "You never know who could need blood. It could be you; it could be your loved one."

The process is simple, she said: Potential donors, who must be between the ages of 18 and 60, will show up and fill out a consent form. Then, they'll be handed a testing kit and given instructions on how to take their own sample by swabbing their cheek. There are no needles or blood involved.

"It just takes a few minutes," Kleinfeldt said.

And, thanks to anonymous donors in the Metro Detroit Jewish community, all of the testing will be paid for, she said. That means potential blood marrow donors won't have to foot the $54 bill for each test.

"If you happen to be a match, the procedure isn't nearly as bad as it was years ago," Kleinfeldt said. "I've talked to people who've had it done and gone back to work the next day."

Each potential donor's test results will be logged in the national registry and could be matched with a patient anywhere in the world.

But the hope is that a donor can be found for Ayelet. The little girl's heritage is Jewish, which means that the best chance for a genetic match will be someone of Eastern European descent, Kleinfeldt said. Drives are even being held in Israel, she added.

"You could save a life," Kleinfeldt said.

The bone marrow registry drive takes place from 7 a.m.-noon on Tuesday at Akiva Hebrew Day School, 21100 W. 12 Mile Rd., Southfield.