Mandi Schwartz

General Sam Rubin

Mandi Schwartz Marrow Donor Registration Drive at Yale Offers Chance to Save a Life

Mandi Schwartz Marrow Donor Registration Drive at Yale
Part of the "Get in the Game. Save a Life." Program for Be The Match®
Ways to Join the Be The Match Registry®:
  • In Person:
    • Thursday, Apr. 20, 2023
    • 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
    • Beinecke Plaza, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. 
    • To join the Be The Match Registry®, must be ages 18 to 40 and willing to donate peripheral blood stem cells or marrow if you are a genetic match for a patient in need of a transplant
    • No advance registration required
    • 1-800-MARROW-2 (for questions related to joining the registry, donating, etc.)
  •  By Website:
  • By Text Message:
    • Text YaleSaves to 61474
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – In recognition of the impact her courageous battle with cancer has had on efforts to save lives through marrow donor registration drives, the Yale athletic department is once again holding a drive in memory of women's ice hockey player Mandi Schwartz '10 (Wilcox, Sask.) (1988-2011). This is Yale's 15th annual drive.

The Mandi Schwartz Marrow Donor Registration Drive at Yale, which is part of the nationwide "Get in the Game. Save a Life." campaign for Be The Match®, offers multiple ways for people to register for the chance to become a life-saving marrow donor. Donors who could help save lives are located through testing that consists of simple cheek swabs.
  • Join in person at Beinecke Plaza on Thursday, Apr. 20, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.  The drive is open to anyone aged 18-40. 
  • At any time, anyone who cannot attend the drive in person at Yale can go on-line to join.bethematch.org/YaleSaves or text YaleSaves to 61474 to start the process of joining the Be The Match Registry®.
Yale's drives are part of the "Get in the Game. Save a Life." program, which started at Villanova in 1992 under the guidance of head football coach Andy Talley. The program involves college athletic teams organizing drives on their campuses. Talley has since partnered with Be The Match® to take his efforts to the national level. Larry Ciotti, a long-time assistant football coach at Yale, is a friend of Talley's and brought the idea to Yale in 2008-09.

The "Get in the Game. Save a Life." program, including 250 partnered schools, has added 160,000 people to the Be The Match Registry®. Those efforts have resulted in more than 900 life-saving transplants. 

The Yale athletic department has held drives each of the past 14 springs – ever since Mandi was first diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in December of 2008. Yale's record-setting drives have added 8,877 potential donors to the Be The Match Registry®, and 90 life-saving donor matches for patients in need have been located through the Bulldogs' efforts.

Yale's drives were led by the football team and women's ice hockey team each of the first two years. In 2011, the field hockey team began assisting. In 2018 the men's soccer team joined these efforts. Last year the Yale volleyball team joined, and this year the men's and women's swimming and diving teams have joined. Members of these teams help spread the word about the need for donors to their classmates, friends and relatives. They also volunteer to help on Drive Day.

Mandi's story has been one of the catalysts behind the success of the Yale drives. In her battle with cancer, she required a blood stem cell transplant to give her a new immune system. With no genetically matching adult donor available, in September 2010 she had a transplant using two anonymously donated units of umbilical cord blood. A biopsy in December 2010 indicated that she had relapsed, and she passed away at home in Saskatchewan on Apr. 3, 2011.

Mandi's plight shed further light on the needs of cancer patients everywhere, and the value of marrow donation. Every year, thousands of people of all ages are diagnosed with leukemia and other life-threatening diseases. Many of them will pass away unless they get a marrow or umbilical cord blood transplant from a matching donor. Seventy percent of these patients do not have a fully matched donor in their family and depend on the Be The Match Registry® to find a genetic match to save their life.

To join the Be The Match Registry®, an individual must be between the ages of 18 and 40, meet certain health guidelines and be willing to donate to any patient in need. The donor test consists of simple cheek swabs and will only take approximately 15 minutes.

Those who registered at previous drives are already in the Be The Match Registry®, so there is no need for them to be registered again. Yale is seeking to add as many NEW potential donors as possible.

Those interested in helping with the Mandi Schwartz Marrow Donor Registration Drive at Yale can contact Larry Ciotti with the Yale football team at larry.ciotti@yale.edu.  
Be The Match Registry®:  
 
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