BONE MARROW DONOR DRIVES FOR 4-YEAR OLD ARMENIAN GIRL HELD ON EASTER SUNDAY AT ARMENIAN CHURCHES THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY
Lisa Manookian
By Editor
Apr 14, 2010
Special to the Mirror-Spectator
PHILADELPHIA – Charlotte Conybear is a charming 4-year-old girl
who suffers from aplastic anemia, a life-threatening disorder that
results in the failure of her bone marrow to produce adequate blood
cells. She is currently receiving transfusions and may be in need
of a bone marrow transplant. As of yet, there are no matches for her
among her family and nor on either the National Bone Marrow Registry
or the Armenian Bone Marrow Donor Registry.
As bone marrow matches are dependent on genetics, ethnicity is a key
component to finding a match.
The tide may turn, as on Easter Sunday, 12 Armenian churches throughout
the country held bone marrow drives in hopes that someone out there
will be able to give little Charlotte a new lease on life.
Charlotte Conybear’s uncle, Dean Jerrehian, said: "It’s amazing how
the Armenian Church drive came about. We held a small registration
drive in conjunction with a trade show I was attending in San
Francisco in January. Louise Johns, from San Francisco, who also had
aplastic anemia – and received a life saving bone marrow transplant –
heard about the drive and, even though she had never met Charlotte
or our family, decided to "pay it forward" and hold a drive for
Charlotte at her pilates studio. At that drive, Aline Aghababian,
an Armenian-American, who also does not know anyone in our family,
heard that Charlotte was more likely to find a match among people
of Armenian descent and organized registration drives at all the San
Francisco Armenian Churches on Easter Sunday. Once Aline got the ball
rolling, we reached out to Armenian churches in Philadelphia, Boston,
Washington and Los Angeles."
Volunteers from each parish conducted the drive following Easter
Sunday services. Participants answered a few questions, filled out a
form and swabbed their cheeks with something resembling a long-stemmed
Q-tip. At St. Sahag & St. Mesrob Armenian Church in Wynnewood, Penn. –
where little Charlotte’s great-grandfather, Aram K. Jerrehian Sr. was
a co-founder and godfather, more than 87 people registered. Volunteers
bar-coded the forms and Q-tips early in the morning, well prepared
for the onslaught of support that followed immediately after services.
The participating churches, in partnership with the Be the Match
Foundation (the new name for the National Bone Marrow Donor Program
Registry) and the Armenian Bone Marrow Donor Registry, were: St. John
Armenian Apostolic Church (San Francisco); St. Gregory Armenian
Apostolic Church (San Francisco); Calvary Armenian Congregational
Church (San Francisco); St. Vartan Armenian Apostolic Church (Oakland);
St. Andrew Armenian Apostolic Church (Cupertino); St.
Mary’s Armenian Apostolic Church (Washington, D.C.); St. Stephen’s
Armenian Apostolic Church (Watertown); Armenian Martyrs’ Congregational
Church (Havertown); Holy Trinity Armenian Church (Cheltenham);
St. Gregory the Illuminator Armenian Church (Philadelphia); St. Mark’s
Armenian Catholic Church (Wynnewood) and St. Sahag & St. Mesrob
Armenian Church (Wynnewood).
St. Gregory Armenian Church in Pasadena, Calif. held the drive on Palm
Sunday and, to accommodate the many Armenians in the Los Angeles area,
Glendale Memorial Hospital held a drive for Conybear on April 7. The
end result was an incredible outpouring of solidarity as more than
800 potential donors joined the registry.
Additional drives are being planned in New York City, Sacramento,
Boston and again in Pasadena and Philadelphia.
Overwhelmed by the generosity of others, Jerrehian stated, "So often
you hear bleak stories of crime, war and tragedy, you almost lose hope
for the future, but then something like this happens where hundreds
of strangers come out to help Charlotte, a little girl they will
likely never meet. It really renews your faith in the basic goodness
of people."
Charlotte Conybear’s mother, Ellen Jerrehian Conybear, was very
grateful: "I really cannot express how touched we are by this
outpouring of support and help. At times we have felt alone in dealing
with Charlotte’s health, but I now know that is not true. There are
many people – family, friends and strangers – who are pulling for us."
Her father, Jeff Conybear noted: "I think it is so appropriate that
these drives occurred on Easter Sunday. The day of the celebration of
the Resurrection of Christ is the perfect day to take action and help
give new life to people like Charlotte, who desperately need bone
marrow transplants. Thousands of people need bone marrow donors to
make their life-saving transplants possible. They depend on ordinary
people – most often a stranger who has the power to be a real hero
and save the life of someone they have never met."
The drive was covered by ABC, NBC and CBS news affiliates in
Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco and local Philadelphia
papers. It was supported by not only members of the Armenian
community, but non-Armenians as well. At Holy Trinity Armenian Church
in Philadelphia, the parish’s secretary, who is not Armenian, came
to Easter services with members of her family. Another woman too
old to donate was young at heart – an author of children’s books,
she gave little Charlotte Conybear a book as a gift. At the Calvery
Armenian Congregational Church in San Francisco, a cancer survivor –
thanks to a bone marrow transplant – gave an inspirational message
during the service.
For many patients suffering from blood diseases, stem cell
transplantation is the only life-saving step. This requires a donor
whose tissue type matches that of the patient. Armenians have a unique
genetic makeup. Therefore, Armenian patients are much more likely to
find matches within their own ethnic group. The Armenian Bone Marrow
Donor Registry (ABMDR) is a registry of more than 15,000 Armenian
donors from all over the world, with the aim of serving Armenian
patients throughout the world. Because half of the Armenian population
lives outside the homeland, finding compatible matches for Armenian
patients requires a registry that encompasses all Armenians globally,
so that an Armenian patient in the US may find his life-saving match
in a small village in Karabagh, or a child in Iran may find a match
in Spain. The more Armenians who register, the more opportunities
the ABMDR has of creating matches and saving lives. The ABMDR has
two headquarters, one in Yerevan, and the other in Los Angeles, with
satellite offices and representatives in more than 13 countries,
and a tissue-typing lab and stem cell harvesting center in Yerevan.
Since its inception in 1999, the ABMDR has facilitated 800 matches and
nine stem cell transplants. In the vast majority of cases (75 percent),
bone marrow donations are no more painful than giving blood as marrow
cells are taken from the blood, rather than directly from the marrow.
Upcoming bone marrow drives will be held on Sunday, April 18 at Forty
Martyrs Armenian Church, Santa Ana, Calif., 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.;
St Mary’s Apostolic Church, Glendale, Calif., 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.; St.
Garabed Apostolic Church, 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Holy Martyrs Armenian
Apostolic Church, 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.; and on April 24, at the
Genocide Memorial Bicknell Park, Montebello, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
For more information on the Armenian Bone Marrow Donor Registry,
visit
For more information on the National Bone Marrow Program, visit
For more information on bone marrow drives to
assist Charlotte Conybear, visit
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress