WEDNESDAY, 5 to 8 PM: Young Woman Brings Bone Marrow Registry Campaign to Darien Y

A 22-year-old woman who needs to find a donor for a bone marrow transplant is campaigning nationwide to get 50,000 people to register as potential donors, and she’s stopping at the Darien YMCA on Tuesday hoping you’ll join.

Sam Kimura will be at the Darien YMCA lobby from 5 to 8 p.m. Wednesday (today) asking people to sign up for the National Marrow Donor Registry and swab the inside of their cheeks (more information about registering and donating is on her group’s website).

If someone who registers this way is one of the rare volunteers asked for a donation, 75 percent of the time the request is for blood platelets, according to Sam’s organization, “Sharing America’s Marrow” or “SAM.” The other 25 percent of the time, the person is asked for blood marrow, which is taken in an outpatient procedure.

In a recent news release, the organization describes the campaign this way:

“Sharing America’s Marrow (SAM) is a campaign started by sisters Sam and Alex Kimura and their friend Taylor Shorten and in collaboration with Delete Blood Cancer to dispel the myths of bone marrow donation, educate the public on the importance of registration and register as many people as possible to become potential bone marrow donors.

“Sam Kimura (22) is fighting a rare bone marrow failure disease and has yet to find a donor for the transplant that she needs to cure her disease. SAM is traveling to all 50 states with the hopes of finding a donor for Sam and for the thousands of other patients fighting blood cancer and other diseases.”

Sam’s yearlong road campaign is scheduled to take her and her friends to 50 states. It started in Louisville, KY on Jan. 19 and is expected to wind up in Hawaii on December 21. The Darien YMCA is the only scheduled stop in Connecticut. On Monday Kimura and her van were in front of the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street. Their next stop after Darien is at the University of Rhode Island on Friday, according to the SAM website.

Correction: This article originally said the day of the event was Tuesday. It’s Wednesday (today), April 22.