Be The Match Registry for Grace Hamilton 3/3/2021

Poly is excited to announce that we will be holding a Be The Match Registry for our dear friend and colleague, Grace Hamilton. This event for faculty and staff is scheduled for Wednesday, March 3, from 11:30 a.m. - 3:30 a.m. on Babcock Field, during the same time as our weekly COVID-19 testing on Babcock Field. For those in the Poly community who wish to participate there is a drive-through option happening at the same time in the Garland Lot via Wilson. 

Grace has dedicated the last 40 years of her life teaching English and mentoring, inspiring, and supporting high school students while also raising her own two children. Just shy of her 66th birthday and set to retire in August, Grace was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia on January 28, 2021. Her doctors have recommended a blood stem cell transplant to cure her. No one in her family was a perfect match so they are searching the Be The Match Registry for an unrelated donor.

 

A week before her diagnosis, Grace hiked a mountain in the beautiful Morongo Valley desert outside of Joshua Tree National Park. Hiking has been a passion of Grace’s, which she has shared with her partner Jonathan and several Australian Shepherd companions over the last 15 years. Her retirement plans still include hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), after she completes her treatment and matches with a bone marrow donor–like you!

 

Grace’s healing vision is of hiking the PCT from the Mexico Border to Canada as a Leukemia survivor. Each day, her partner sends daily narrative snapshots of the trail and friends send photos of the flowers and sights she will be seeing along the way. As soon as she is able, she and her partner plan to finally get married at the start of the PCT and honeymoon their way to the end of the trail. Fittingly, she is seeing her diagnosis and treatment as a pilgrimage with a beginning, middle, and a happy end. Will you #HikeWithGrace, too?

 

As a life-long advocate for social justice and supporting under-represented peoples, Grace hopes to inspire donors from all backgrounds, so that everyone has a chance to find their match. Please consider donating in her honor, especially if you think you might represent an underrepresented population in the bone marrow registry. 

It takes less than 10 minutes to register and complete a simple cheek swab to see if you could be a match. Donors must be between 18-44 years old, in general good health, and be willing to donate to any patient. You could be the one!

If you can't make it on March 3, you can register through City of Hope. Just click on the link join.bethematch.org/hikewithgrace or text HIKEWITHGRACE to 61474 and City of Hope will mail a kit to you. If you have any questions, please contact our coordinator, Joyce Valdez at jovaldez@coh.org. 

And for those of you unable to participate in the Be The Match Registry for Grace because of age or current health issues, we plan to hold a blood drive at Huntington Hospital on behalf of Grace sometime in April. Please stay tuned for further information about the blood drive.