Bone Marrow Drive a Success

Business networkers from The Suite Success In Networking Group that meets Monday mornings at The Office Suite on Loudon Road came together on June 4 to volunteer their time to raise awareness and help with a bone marrow drive.

During the course of eight hours, volunteers learned about the initiative, helped guide donors through the process of getting swabbed, manned tables, and had an all around good time, for a good cause.

The drive was put together by Molly Ricker and her mother, Kim Lyden-Ricker, who co-own the office space rental facility and café, as a memorial to Giovanni Guglielmo, the young Belmont boy who passed away six weeks ago from a rare immune disorder.

Giovanni’s father, Michael Guglielmo, who has made it his mission in life to collect at least 20,000 samples to see if those people match others on the donor list, was on hand to help the volunteers through the process and make sure things ran smoothly. Another drive was also being held in Maine on Monday.

For Michael Guglielmo, the death of his son in April has hit him and his family and friends hard, especially as they were able to get to know the boy they nicknamed “gladiator.” He is still raw from the pain of losing his son, often looking at the pictures of his boy and speaking in borderline weepy hushes.

“I will do whatever I can to get this done,” he said at one point during the afternoon. “A father should never have to lose his son like this.”

In his short five years, Giovanni Guglielmo touched many lives, he noted, and now, was in a sense, living on in the legacy of complete strangers coming together, all around the United States, and even in Italy, to help others.

The process was a simple one – certain people in an age and weight class – were asked to look over a symptoms or sickness chart, to make sure they didn’t have HIV or sever back problems, as an example. Next, they filled out some forms with personal contact information. After that, donors were asked to swab both sides of their cheeks 10 times, hard, in order to make sure cells adhered to the swabs, and then put the swabs in a donation envelope. After that, they received a donor card with their matching donor number, and then, they wait.

"You are now the missing piece to someone's life,” he stated to those who were swabbed, handing them a lapel pin of a red puzzle piece.

Unlike other groups, DKMS, the group Michael Guglielmo is currently working for, doesn’t charge a fee to be a donor. While he was accepting donations, he wasn’t asking for them.

“For me, it’s all about getting people into the registry,” he said.

Michael Guglielmo stated that, surprisingly, only 27 percent of donors were men. He said most are too busy or self-absorbed to become involved. But those who do, he said, showed honor and intelligence. So far, Michael Guglielmo has found 143 donors who match someone on the list who needed help.

While the swabbing process is easy, the donation process is a bit more difficult, including needles and drawing extract from the bone marrow. The process creates a bit of soreness but it’s a small price to pay to save the life of another, most stated.

During the course of the day, 37 people were swabbed.

“We had much higher personal goals,” Lyden-Ricker said. “But I think, given the weather, and it being a Monday, it was still great. It just takes one … and I’m hoping we have that one. It would be so incredible.”

On average, about 20 people show up in most drives, according to Michael Guglielmo. He said that he has had some where three people show up and others where as many as 2,500 are swabbed.

“Any day that I can register someone it’s a successful day,” Michael Guglielmo said. “They’re an amazing group of people here. Had the weather been better, we probably would have been inundated with droves of people. We got a good mixture of men and diversity, which was good.”

The next donor drive will be Sunday, June 10, at the Alton traffic circle, to commemorate bike week, he said.

For more information or to have a kit sent to you, visit helpgiovanniguglielmo.org.