Walking for a cause

The Gift of Life foundation was created 20 years ago after Jay Feinberg of West Orange, N.J., having recovered from his own battle with leukemia, created this non-profit organization for matching bone marrow donors with recipients.
Walk for Life is one of its signature fundraising events. A component of Gift of Life, it spreads awareness and raises money so that more testing kits may be purchased and used for collecting bone marrow and blood stem cells from donors.
On Sept. 14, starting at 10 a.m. in Eisenhower Park in East Meadow, a 5K walk/run is scheduled. The goal for this walk is to raise $40,000. Over 235,000 people have registered as donors with over 11,000 matches made, according to Gift of Life officials.
Gregg Frances, the Chief Financial Officer of Gift of Life, said that the proceeds from the East Meadow event will go toward testing kits to help critically ill patients find a bone marrow match. Right now, the organization is searching for a match for a six-year-old girl, Sami, who has franconia anemia. “Anyone who participates in the Long Island walks will help find matches for patients with blood cancer,” he said. “Our goal is to save more lives.”
Adam Lish, a Woodmere optometrist and HAFTR’s vice president of education, gave bone marrow to an eight year old boy suffering from leukemia. Adam had previously participated in a Gift of Life bone marrow drive and was tested to see if he would be someone’s match.

“We’ve found over 50 matches through our HAFTR drives so far,” Lish said. “As an organization, we’ve been instrumental in finding matches for people.”
Justin Lish, Adam’s son, said that when his family heard about Walk of Life, he decided to create Team HAFTR for his school community to participate. As captain of this group, he hopes to get even more people to come out in support this year.
So far, he’s created a Facebook page for his group, written an email to the school’s parents to promote the team and its goals, and assembled a committee to facilitate fund raising and to increase student and parent participation.
“My favorite memories of my participation include when I went out on Central Avenue in Cedarhurst and Lawrence with my sister, Samantha, to get volunteers to be swabbed at one of the Gift of Life bone marrow drives,” he said. “Meeting the boy to whom my dad donated bone marrow, and watching each other grow up over the years at our annual meetings at the Gift of Life dinners, is my favorite memory of all.”
Brian Yaakov Hagler, a Woodmere resident who was saved with a donation ten years ago, said he wouldn’t have survived without his donor, Michal Levine, with whom he remains close. He will emcee the Sept. 14 walk, introducing a donor to a recipient.
“It’s a tremendously kind thing to do, to donate,” he said.
To learn more about the walk, visit http://support.giftoflife.org/site/TR/WalkForLife/General?pg=informational&fr_id=1120&type=fr_informational&sid=1012. For Team HAFTR’s Facebook page, visit https://www.facebook.com/giftoflifeteamhaftr.