Blood Source and California State University, Stanislaus’s Nu Alpha Kappa Fraternity hosted a blood drive  on Oct. 2 to help local boy, Miguel Orozco, 4, find a blood marrow match.
Miguel suffers from a rare, inherited blood disorder known as Fanconi’s Anemia (FA) that results in blood marrow failure.
According to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, FA “prevents your bone marrow from making enough new blood cells for your body to work normally. FA also can cause your bone marrow to make many faulty blood cells. This can lead to serious health problems, such as leukemia.”
Liz Ustick, Blood Source Account Manager, explained why Miguel must find a match.
“A marrow transplant will cure this disease, [but] at this time there are no matches on the registry of close to 11 million people worldwide,” Ustick said.
“Miguel’s most likely match will be with someone of like ethnicity. Unfortunately only 10% of the ‘Be The Match’ marrow registry are Hispanic so we need to really bump up those numbers.”
Once a match is found, Miguel can receive a bone marrow transplant from his donor and hopefully lead a normal life.
Miguel’s mother, Maria Orozco, described him as a wonderful little boy who loves to play outside with his little sister Aileen, who also has Fanconi’s Anemia. However, Aileen has a form of FA which does not require a transplant at this time.
Frequent blood donor, Chris Netniss (senior, Criminal Justice) explained his motivation to donate blood.
“I like to donate blood each time venues are on campus because it’s not only convenient, it’s also a great way of giving back. Blood is a constant need and any contribution is important to potentially help save a life.”
Students and faculty who donated received a free T-shirt and were provided snacks and refreshments.