Kirby Wong, a Seattle man of Chinese-American descent, could be alive today if there had been greater ethnic diversity in the blood supply five years ago. Similarly, more racial minorities on the marrow registry could help New Mexico's Kailee Wells, an adopted Chinese girl with aplastic anemia, whose father's quest to find a match for her brought him to Seattle this past summer.
Locally and nationally, people like Wong and Wells are the inspiration for Kin On Health Care Center and Puget Sound Blood Center's efforts on Saturday Feb. 5. On this day, both organizations will host the fifth annual Kirby Wong Blood Drive at the Chinese Baptist Church, located at 5801 Beacon Ave. S. in Seattle, from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
"As the local affiliate of the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP), the blood center encourages people of Asian heritage to make a commitment to donating blood and getting on the NMDP registry," said Zeena Smith, blood drive coordinator. "Each year, thousands of people like Wong or Wells need lifesaving blood transfusions or bone marrow transplants. The simple act of registering at one of these drives can possibly hold the key to saving someone's life."
Wong, who died in May 2000, left behind $100,000 for the Kin On Health Care Center in Seattle to host two drives a year for the next five years in the Asian Pacific Islander community.
Asian Americans make up approximately 6 percent of the 5 million registrants on the NMDP, a national database of bone marrow donors. Additionally, only about 3.5 percent of America's ethnic groups are represented in the country's total blood supply. The commemorative drive is designed to increase the number of Chinese and other Asian Pacific Islanders represented on the national marrow registry and in the regional blood supply.
To address this deficiency, Puget Sound Blood Center provides its resources and specialized recruitment efforts to help diversify the donor base through its rare donor program. Established in 2000 to focus on the recruitment and retention of ethnic minority donors, the rare donor program was created because of people like Wong. The organization directly affects the lives of more than half million patients annually in over 70 hospitals and clinics in 14 counties of Washington state and provides tissue and transplantation support to 185 hospitals across the Northwest.
For more information, or to schedule an appointment, interested donors should contact Kin On Health Care Center at 721-3630.
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