It's been a while since our last post. But we have been very busy with the tournament and planning some new and exciting things for you all. Here are some of the fun ideas:
T-shirt Color - either black or dark blue
Photography - Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/groups/1041538@N25/
Hospitality Book
- Directions to the different sites
- Will be given out at registration
-Contain coupons for different restaurants near the sites – hopefully we can call and get donations
- Info about the drives needs to be in here
- Will have info about the Social Event if we decide to still have it
Silent Auction info – including the prizes!
Joining the registration online – can have a kit mailed to you
Bracelets - Another tool for awareness
Social Event - Have it a month or so before – that way we gain some momentum and people start to get excited about the tournament
Free Throw Contest
Thanks everyone!
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
First Tournament Meeting Tomorrow!
First Tournament Meeting Tomorrow on November 21st Saturday 4-6pm in the English Room at Swedish Covenant Hospital in the Anderson Pavilion.
Dear Friends of Ahepa Marrow,
We are going to meet tomorrow. This will be a very important meeting since this will be the only
meeting we will have this year. Our second meeting will take place in January, and our last
meeting will be in February. We will only have three meetings for organizing our 2nd Annual
2010 Ahepa Marrow Tournament.
During this first meeting, we plan on reviewing the various aspects of the tournament, and the
function of our various committees. We will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the
tournament (what went well and what did not), how to improve the tournament, and how to
better prepare for next year's event. As always everyone's opinion and participation is valuable,
and we believe this is the true strength of our tournament.
The agenda will allow every committee chair to briefly go over their strengths and weaknesses
and where changes should be made, and brainstorm with the audience. Please feel free to
bring anyone that wishes to be part of this event. Please attend this important meeting and let
us know how we can make this a better and more successful event for all next year on
March 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14th 2010.
Please note that we are now on Facebook and Twitter. Our web site is wwww.ahepamarrow.org
http://ahepamarrow.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/ahepamarrow
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/AHEPA-Marrow/204749000284?ref=ts
Thanks for your help an support,
John Venetos M.D.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Meeting Date/Time Finalized
Tournament Meeting on Sat Nov. 21 from 4-6 p.m. in the English Room of Swedish Covenant Hospital at 2751 W. Winona, Chicago, Illinois, 60625.
The tournament will be:
March 10, 11, 12, 13, & 14, 2010 in Chicago, Illinois
Come with questions, comments and ideas!
An AHEPA MARROW sponsored event that Promotes Education, Raises Awareness of Marrow Transplant Process, Recruits Eligible Donors, and serves as a National Fundraising Event
Email sveneto@luc.edu with questions!
The tournament will be:
March 10, 11, 12, 13, & 14, 2010 in Chicago, Illinois
Come with questions, comments and ideas!
An AHEPA MARROW sponsored event that Promotes Education, Raises Awareness of Marrow Transplant Process, Recruits Eligible Donors, and serves as a National Fundraising Event
Email sveneto@luc.edu with questions!
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Greek Basketball
Check out this awesome video of Ahepa Marrow supporter Kirk Vidas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGivjrL4JXE
You'll be sure to see some great games at our upcoming AHEPA Marrow National Invitational Basketball Tournament. And, Kirk Vidas, will definitely be a player to watch!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tournament Meeting!!
Tournament Meeting for the Second Annual AHEPA MARROW National Invitational Basketball Tournament
When: Saturday Nov. 21st at 4 p.m.
Where: Swedish Covenant Hospital, English Room- 2751 W. Winona, Chicago, Illinois, 60625
The tournament will be: March 10, 11, 12, 13, & 14, 2010 in Chicago, Illinois
An AHEPA MARROW sponsored event that Promotes Education, Raises Awareness of Marrow Transplant Process, Recruits Eligible Donors, and serves as a National Fundraising Event
If you have questions, comments or concerns you can contact John Venetos at (847) 679-1113 or SAMV5161@aol.com
When: Saturday Nov. 21st at 4 p.m.
Where: Swedish Covenant Hospital, English Room- 2751 W. Winona, Chicago, Illinois, 60625
The tournament will be: March 10, 11, 12, 13, & 14, 2010 in Chicago, Illinois
An AHEPA MARROW sponsored event that Promotes Education, Raises Awareness of Marrow Transplant Process, Recruits Eligible Donors, and serves as a National Fundraising Event
If you have questions, comments or concerns you can contact John Venetos at (847) 679-1113 or SAMV5161@aol.com
Join the Database!!
The mission of the Ahepa Marrow Donor Registry is to add persons of Mediterranean descent into our database of prospective donors. The best chance for a leukemia patient is from a family member. Secondly, from relatives, and then from their ethnic group.
The chances of finding an unrelated (allogeneic) match are 20,000 to 1. We must add to our database so that any Greek patient has a realistic chance of finding a match.
Since April 2006, we've added 3,000 donors to the Registry. And we're already doing good things. More than 4000 patients around the world have searched our database since then, and three of our donors have been asked to "be at the ready" for a donation (cancer patients have to be "healthy" enough to receive the transplant).
But we still have significant challenges before us. The truth is that we are at a very critical point for the Registry. Awareness is building, but some members of our Greek American community are hesitant to get tested. They don’t know that tremendous strides have been made in marrow transplants and that, today, it is much easier to be a donor. You don’t necessarily have to go under anesthesia and have marrow extracted from your hip; now, blood stem cells can easily be removed from your blood with minimal risk. It's an outpatient procedure, most often. Mothers-to-be can also choose to donate the umbilical cord blood that is otherwise discarded as medical waste when their babies are born.
The chances of finding an unrelated (allogeneic) match are 20,000 to 1. We must add to our database so that any Greek patient has a realistic chance of finding a match.
Since April 2006, we've added 3,000 donors to the Registry. And we're already doing good things. More than 4000 patients around the world have searched our database since then, and three of our donors have been asked to "be at the ready" for a donation (cancer patients have to be "healthy" enough to receive the transplant).
But we still have significant challenges before us. The truth is that we are at a very critical point for the Registry. Awareness is building, but some members of our Greek American community are hesitant to get tested. They don’t know that tremendous strides have been made in marrow transplants and that, today, it is much easier to be a donor. You don’t necessarily have to go under anesthesia and have marrow extracted from your hip; now, blood stem cells can easily be removed from your blood with minimal risk. It's an outpatient procedure, most often. Mothers-to-be can also choose to donate the umbilical cord blood that is otherwise discarded as medical waste when their babies are born.
We need your support!
AHEPA Marrow Donor Registry asks AHEPANS for support.
Last year, some 35,000 children and adults with life-threatening diseases could have benefited from a marrow, blood stem cell or cord blood transplant. Some found a donor within their families, but 70 percent were put in the unthinkable position of desperately searching among strangers for a match. Steve Pappas was among them. A high school English teacher and one of the most respected basketball coaches in Chicago, Pappas was battling an aggressive case of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma this summer when doctors told him he was in urgent need of a transplant. None of his relatives turned up as a match. So, with a massive outpouring of support from former players and coaches, and his friends and teaching colleagues, Pappas turned to the AHEPA Marrow Donor Registry with a critical mission to find a compatible donor. Because Steve was Greek and because of the way the donation process works, that donor would likely have to be of Hellenic descent. We found the Greek community to be overwhelming in its moral support of “Team Pappas”, particularly the St. Demetrios parish in Chicago where Steve had long been a basketball coach. And we tested a remarkable number of volunteers—just under 3000 in three months. Sadly, though, it wasn’t enough to find Steve a donor. He died on June 8, 2006.
Steve's fruitless search is pretty typical. Greek cancer patients have a difficult time finding suitable marrow or blood stem cell donors because of the very fact that they are Greek—people of Hellenic heritage are severely under-represented in the national and international marrow registries. And our own AHEPA Marrow Donor Registry, with just 11,000 potential donors, is far from where it needs to be to provide tangible assistance for the vast numbers of Greek cancer patients. That's the sole reason why the Registry came into existence nearly 20 years ago. In 1987 Dr. Peter Gallas was stricken with acute myelogenous leukemia. He had recently received his M.D. from Wayne State University in Michigan, and was serving as a resident in anesthesiology at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Peter’s family in the United States and in Greece was tested, but no one came up as a compatible donor. Then, Dr. Peter Paulus (PSP) of Ocala, Fla. stepped in and volunteered to head an AHEPA Committee that would enact a nationwide effort to recruit funds and donors and, most importantly, to find Peter a match. Unfortunately, Peter died before a donor was ever found, but his legacy lives on in the AHEPA Marrow Donor Registry.
Since then, over the last 20 years, the Registry has been managed by a small but dedicated group of volunteers in New Jersey, led by Angelo Pantazes. This group had the difficult task of raising funds to cover testing costs for volunteer donors ($50 for each person tested), and, amazingly, adding nearly 9,000 active donors to the Registry database.
Last year, some 35,000 children and adults with life-threatening diseases could have benefited from a marrow, blood stem cell or cord blood transplant. Some found a donor within their families, but 70 percent were put in the unthinkable position of desperately searching among strangers for a match. Steve Pappas was among them. A high school English teacher and one of the most respected basketball coaches in Chicago, Pappas was battling an aggressive case of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma this summer when doctors told him he was in urgent need of a transplant. None of his relatives turned up as a match. So, with a massive outpouring of support from former players and coaches, and his friends and teaching colleagues, Pappas turned to the AHEPA Marrow Donor Registry with a critical mission to find a compatible donor. Because Steve was Greek and because of the way the donation process works, that donor would likely have to be of Hellenic descent. We found the Greek community to be overwhelming in its moral support of “Team Pappas”, particularly the St. Demetrios parish in Chicago where Steve had long been a basketball coach. And we tested a remarkable number of volunteers—just under 3000 in three months. Sadly, though, it wasn’t enough to find Steve a donor. He died on June 8, 2006.
Steve's fruitless search is pretty typical. Greek cancer patients have a difficult time finding suitable marrow or blood stem cell donors because of the very fact that they are Greek—people of Hellenic heritage are severely under-represented in the national and international marrow registries. And our own AHEPA Marrow Donor Registry, with just 11,000 potential donors, is far from where it needs to be to provide tangible assistance for the vast numbers of Greek cancer patients. That's the sole reason why the Registry came into existence nearly 20 years ago. In 1987 Dr. Peter Gallas was stricken with acute myelogenous leukemia. He had recently received his M.D. from Wayne State University in Michigan, and was serving as a resident in anesthesiology at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Peter’s family in the United States and in Greece was tested, but no one came up as a compatible donor. Then, Dr. Peter Paulus (PSP) of Ocala, Fla. stepped in and volunteered to head an AHEPA Committee that would enact a nationwide effort to recruit funds and donors and, most importantly, to find Peter a match. Unfortunately, Peter died before a donor was ever found, but his legacy lives on in the AHEPA Marrow Donor Registry.
Since then, over the last 20 years, the Registry has been managed by a small but dedicated group of volunteers in New Jersey, led by Angelo Pantazes. This group had the difficult task of raising funds to cover testing costs for volunteer donors ($50 for each person tested), and, amazingly, adding nearly 9,000 active donors to the Registry database.
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