This month’s charity is nominated by Gillian, who works on our helpdesk:
The ACLT is a charity close to my heart as it was set up by the parents of a friend I went to school with, Daniel De-Gale. The charity was established by Beverley De-Gale and Orin Lewis to recruit as many bone marrow and blood donors as possible from the black and mixed race community “by any means necessary”.
They undertook this important task after finding out that Daniel desperately needed a bone marrow transplant. They were told that a tiny number of black people were registered as donors.
There was a one in 250,000 chance of finding a match.
To date the ACLT have directly recruited 30 donors who have gone on to give stem cell transplants and have helped to register about 32,000 potential bone marrow stem cell donors from the black and mixed race community.
Despite this boost in donors, unfortunately, the chances of finding a match still remain shockingly low at around one in 100,000.
They recently embarked on a new hard hitting advertising campaign which featured in the Metro which I hope enables them to help register many more donors.
Beverley De-Gale, co-founder of the ACLT, told us:
“The ACLT are honoured to be recognised by JustGiving for our life saving work recruiting donors. Cancer will affect all of us at various stages of our lives and if we can encourage you to register as potential bone marrow donors and to become blood donors at one of our drives simply by education and awareness exercises, which ultimately instigate debate or positive reactions, our job is done.
“Pictured are Sarah Thompson and her donor Michelle, and our son Daniel De-Gale with his donor Doreene. Sarah and Daniel were both diagnosed with leukaemia and needed bone marrow transplants to survive.
“Daniel enjoyed an additional nine years of quality life following his transplant before he was sadly taken from us aged 21 years on the 8th October 2008 through other complications with his health.
“Sarah is living with her husband Mark in South London, enjoying life and both volunteer in their spare time helping the ACLT to raise awareness and saving other lives.”
Tags: ACLT, bone marrow donor, Charity, Charity of the month, give blood, Online Fundraising