Now is your chance to be a hero.

Jennifer Jones Austin, a 41-year-old wife and Mother of two, ages 12 and 7, from Brooklyn, N.Y., has leukemia and is in need of a bone marrow transplant. African Americans are severely underrepresented on the bone marrow donor registry list, so now you have a great reason to sign up.

Austin is an executive for the United Way. Doctors have said that a marrow transplant is her best chance for survival. She is currently undergoing chemotherapy treatments to help keep her alive long enough for a donor to be found, but chemotherapy is taxing on the body and Austin was on a ventilator just a few months ago.

To help African Americans, get on to the list, donor drives are being held around the country. Even if you aren't a match for Austin, you could save someone else's life.

"I pray a lot and try to think positive about what can be, and hope and pray for a good outcome for myself and for others. I look at it where everyone has their burdens and this is mine. I just pray that I get through it," Austin said.

Austin's case is reminiscent of the adorable Jasmina Anema, the 6-year-old who died recently after battling leukemia. She captured this country's heart when she asked to meet President Barack Obama.

Like Anema, Austin, who has spent her career helping others, is now in need of help

"I wake up a lot at different hours of the night, and sometimes, I have a hard time sleeping, just worrying about tomorrow and what's to come," Austin, 41, told Bronx Boro News.


The chances of African Americans finding a donor are almost half that of Caucasians. Only about 7 percent, or 600,000 of the 8 million registered marrow donors, are African American. Because the marrow needs to match the recipient's marrow, chances of a match increase when the donor is of the same ethnicity as the recipient. African Americans also have a more diverse tissue type that is harder to match.

The process of becoming part of the registry is as simple as swabbing your cheek for a sample, so what excuse do we really have for not signing up? Go to Bethematch.org, and they will send out a kit that you can mail back in.

The donation process, for more than 70 percent of people, only involves the painless procedure of donating plasma. Actual marrow donations are performed comfortably under anesthesia.

Austin and her family have conducted over 70 drives since December. This is going a long way to adding more African Americans to the donor list. Last year, more than 50,000 African Americans joined the national bone marrow registry and nearly 8,000 donated cord blood units.

That's good, but we can do better. I suggest that we seek to triple those numbers in 2010. Latinos, who are also underrepresented on the marrow registry, should step up as well. If you are between the ages of 18 and 60 and in relatively good health, there's not a good reason for joining.

This, after all, is about saving ourselves.

"The drives being done here and across the country give me joy," said Austin. "Just seeing other people come together and giving their time and giving physically - it gives me a lot of joy and it gives me the sense that I have a greater purpose."