WHAT:   It will be the follow-up to a most special delivery as a British bone marrow recipient celebrates his 40th birthday in New York, as made possible by a Manhattan postal employee who joined a registry of potential donors at a Postal Service-sponsored bone marrow drive.  She stepped up to the call and meets the recipient of her donated bone marrow on Thursday.

Their meeting will be accompanied by a Free Marrow Donor Registration in the lobby of the James A. Farley Post Office (421 8th Avenue) conducted through noon.

WHO:   

• Postal marrow donor Audrey Pollard, Mail Processing Associate, Manhattan Post Office

“While going through the screening process, Audrey prayed that she would be able to donate.  She wanted to pass each test so that she could donate.  She did not want to come this far and then be told that it was not going to happen.  On February 26, 2004, Audrey entered Memorial Sloan Kettering and her bone marrow was harvested.”

• Marrow recipient Mark Worrall, of Birmingham, England

“It is thanks to Audrey and her kind and compassionate decision to join the register that I am alive today and I can never thank her enough, or indeed the thousands of other people who have taken the decision to join blood and donor registers around the world.”

• Representatives of the New York Blood Center
• Be-The-Match Foundation
• NYC Postmaster Robert Brown

“I am proud of postal employees who are making a difference in the life of a family member, friend - or someone they never even met.  When you join the Marrow Donor Registry, you give the greatest gift – the gift of life.”

WHEN:

• Press availability of donor and recipient — Thursday, March 8 — 9:30am – 10am
• Marrow registration through noon

WHERE:
At the James A. Farley Post Office Museum — 421 8th Avenue, Manhattan NY 10199 (located in the main lobby next to Postal Store, closest to 33rd St entrance on the corner of 8th Avenue)

WHY:
In 1997, Be The Match Foundation (formerly The Marrow Foundation) invited the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to collaborate with them in an effort to build awareness about the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) — especially among African Americans and other ethnically diverse employees — and help increase the number and diversity of volunteer potential donors on the Be The Match Registry

The Postal Service’s “Delivering the gift of life” campaign has added 56,536 postal employees and family members to the Be The Match Registry, with about 52 percent ethnically-diverse potential donors recruited.  To date, 81 postal-affiliated donors have provided marrow since USPS began its affiliation.
The chances of a perfect match are rare — one in every 10,000 and sometimes one in 20,000.

Registering for the Marrow Donor Program only requires the filling out of a registration form and providing a sample of saliva (cells) from your mouth.  Cells are then marked for privacy, tested in a laboratory and the results recorded on a national registry website made available to hospitals worldwide.

# # #

A list of processing facilities studied, FAQs, mail processing b-roll, and additional information can be found at usps.com/ourfuturenetwork.

A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 151 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With nearly 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $65 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 35th in the 2011 Fortune 500. In 2011, the U.S. Postal Service was ranked number one in overall service performance, out of the top 20 wealthiest nations in the world, Oxford Strategic Consulting. Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency for six years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.

About the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) and Be The Match
The National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) operates the Be The Match Registry and partners with a global network of leading hospitals, blood centers, public cord blood banks and laboratories. As a leader in the field of bone marrow and cord blood transplantation, the NMDP facilitates transplants worldwide, conducts research to improve survival and quality of life, and provides education and support services to patients and health care professionals. Together with its fundraising partner, Be The Match Foundation, the NMDP is dedicated to creating an opportunity for all patients to receive the transplant therapy they need. Since operations began in 1987, the NMDP has provided more than 50,000 transplants to help give patients a second chance at life. For more information, visit BeTheMatch.org or call 1 (800) MARROW-2.