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BF Club of RI leader John Rohland is giving all his BF referral bonuses to the bone marrow cause
I had the pleasure of meeting John Rohland and helping him kick off the Bike Friday Club of Rhode Island during my Handsomest Man in Cuba 2004 Book Tour. John's quest: to ride his Bike Friday Pocket Rocket for a worthy cause - bone marrow and organ donation. He tells me the general procedure for donating bone marrow is now as simple as that of donating blood (glad to hear that). And he'll donate his $50 Bike Friday referral bonuses to the cause - so if you meet John and decide to buy a Bike Friday, tell us he sent you! - Lynette Chiang
WHAT DOES JOHN ROHLAND DO ON A FRIDAY? THE LONE STAR CIRCLE OF LIFE TOUR, 2004
I'll be riding my Bike Friday Pocket Rocket over 600 miles around the state of Texas from September 27 through October 4th in the 2004 Lone Star Circle of Life (LSCOL) Bike Tour to promote the critical need for life-saving donations of blood, marrow, organs and tissue. It is an honor to have been chosen as one of only 12 riders and to be the only out-of-state rider to participate in this annual tour. I'll make a donation to the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) for any Bike Friday sales referrals from my participation in LSCOL.
Many of us have friends, family or co-workers fighting conditions that can be helped by these life-saving donations. If you are wondering why I want to raise the awareness of the entire Bike Friday family, please read the statistics below. It suddenly becomes clear what a difference each one of us can make by donating blood, becoming a registered bone marrow donor, or signing an organ/tissue donor card. Donation statistics (From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Workplace Partnership for Life Information Packet)
· As of September 2002, the organ transplant waiting list had more than 80,000 men, women, and children waiting for a new kidney, heart, liver, lung, pancreas, or intestine.
· Every 13 minutes another person is added to the waiting list for organs.
· An average of 17 people die every day, one every 85 minutes, waiting for an organ that could save their lives.
· Up to 30,000 people per year are diagnosed with leukemia or other blood or genetic diseases for which a marrow or blood cell transplant may be a course of treatment.
· About 75% of patients will not find a matched donor within their family and must turn to the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) to find an unrelated donor.
· At any one time 3,000 patients are looking for a life-saving marrow donor.
· There is a special need for minority marrow donors. While the number of transplants for minority patients has nearly tripled since 1995, minorities are still less likely than Caucasians to find a matched donor through the National Marrow Donor Program's Registry.
· Under normal circumstances, every two seconds someone in America will need a blood transfusion. Blood transfusions are used for trauma victims - due to accidents and burns?heart surgery, organ transplants, women with complications during childbirth, newborns and premature babies, and patients receiving treatment for leukemia, cancer or other diseases, such as sickle cell disease and thalassemia.
· According to the most recent data from the National Blood Data Resource Center, U.S. hospitals transfused nearly 14 million units of whole blood and red blood cells to 4.9 million patients in 2001?that's an average of 38,000 units of blood needed on any given day.
More About the Bike Tour
In its seventh year, the bike tour will kick-off in Crocket, TX on September 26th and will end in Houston on October 4th, making a stop in Dallas on the 29th of September. This tour is organized by seven National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) donor centers in the state including: Baylor University Medical Center, Carter BloodCare, Cook Children's Medical Center, Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center, Scott & White Clinic, Stewart Regional Blood Center and the South Texas Blood and Tissue Center.
Contact me for more information. And thank you for reading about a cause that can affect any one of us - and someone we love.
John Rohland, Bike Friday Club of Rhode Island leader, john.r@verizon.net, (401) 258-8828
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Links to Related Information
See John on the Rhode Island Blood Bank site
Lone Star Circle of Life Bike Tour online
Learn more about the LSCOL and follow the tour on-line
- Find U.S. blood donation centers and sign up for drives
American Red Cross - Find U.S. centers and sign up for blood drives
Organ Donation - Read about organ donation and print a U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services donor card to carry in your wallet
National Minority Organ Tissue Transplant Education Program - Find information specifically for minority communities about organ and tissue donation