By Anna Liu
Do you have four minutes to save a life?
Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down and chat with Summer Willis, a former pre-med student from Southern Virginia University. She’s currently working on volunteer medical hours while pregnant with her second son! And that’s not all. On top of raising the cutest one-year-old boy you’ll ever meet, and being married to a law student, Summer is determined to save lives through the Be the Match organization.
What is Be the Match? Summer was happy to explain it to me. Be the Match is a national donor registry (the most diverse registry in the world). The organization asks for candidates ranging in age from 18–35 years old to register as donors. From there, Be the Match connects patients with a matching donor for a life-saving marrow transplant. “Only 30% of donors are able to find matches in their families, the rest have to rely on complete strangers to save their lives,” Summer shared with me. “That’s why it’s important that people register as donors. It raises the chance of someone finding a match.”
Summer first found out about Be the Match through her younger sister, Ashley McManus, who registered to be a donor while attending University of Texas in 2016. Ashley didn’t think much of it, until seven years later, her father received a phone call.
“Is this Ashley McManus?”
“No, but this is her father. Who is this?”
“I’m with Be the Match. Ashley is a match with someone who is battling leukemia.”
From there, it was fairly obvious to Ashley what she had to do. In order to save her match’s life, she had to donate stem cells. Summer walked me through the process, explaining that it’s very similar to donating plasma. “They hook you up to a machine and take out some of your blood. They extract the stem cells and put your blood back in your body,” Summer described. With Ashley’s stem cell transfusion, her match was cured.
Ashley’s experience inspired Summer; it was so easy to be a hero! It only takes four minutes to register as a donor with Be the Match: three and a half minutes to fill out the paperwork, and thirty seconds to swab the inside of your cheek. It’s important to note that after registering, it’s rare to be a match for someone. There are very specific requirements; it’s only a 1 in 1,000 chance you will match with someone.
Beth Phelps, a friend of Summer’s mother, is another person in Summer’s life who has a very strong connection to Be the Match. Beth is a leukemia survivor. When she was 55, the doctors told Beth she only had one year left to live. Then, a miracle.
A stranger, a 34-year-old army officer, was Beth’s exact match for the lifesaving transfusion that she needed. Because of that army officer, Beth has been cancer free for three years.
Already determined to find a way to help Be the Match, Summer was further motivated by a documentary she watched. “I learned from that documentary that about 400,000 people in Africa die every year from sickle cell disease. Sickle cell disease can be cured by a stem cell transfusion,” Summer told me. At the time, she was seven months pregnant with her healthy baby boy. Summer knew that if her son had sickle cell disease, she would do whatever it took to save his life. But what about the people who didn’t have the means to save their children? Shouldn’t she try to help them as well? She couldn’t stand back and do nothing. Someone had to help.
Summer went to the two smartest people she knew. The first, a MD/PhD at Columbia, had other interests already occupying his time. Summer turned to her husband in law school next, who explained he was already pretty busy.
Summer already had a bachelor’s degree in English, but she didn’t hesitate to jump back into college. She registered for pre-med classes at Southern Virginia University. If no one else would help those children, Summer would become a doctor and do it herself. On top of her classes, Summer decided to run a marathon to raise money for Be the Match. Training for that marathon meant a lot of running — and a lot of time to herself.
Summer and her son, Alfred, after she finished the marathon
It was on those long runs that Summer began to form the idea of a Halloween-themed fundraising event at Hull’s Drive-in. Her favorite holiday and a chance to raise money for Be the Match? She immediately got to work.
When Summer showed me her idea earlier this year, I immediately thought of Professor Covington, business professor at Southern Virginia University. I was taking his digital marketing course at the time and thought Summer’s event would be the perfect project for his fall 2022 class.
I spoke with Patrick Davison (‘23), who is in that digital marketing class. He said, “We are currently working with a handful of mediums to reach the widest audience possible for the event. We as a class are in charge of advertising for this event. We’ve made an Instagram, a TikTok, and we are advertising through the Knight App as well! We are working to post as frequently as we can in order to reach as many people as possible for this, and we are so excited!” Make sure to follow those accounts to stay updated on this event — you don’t want to miss it.
Summer’s fundraiser promises to be full of service and Halloween fun. Mark your calendars for October 19! The itinerary for the night is as follows:
5:30 pm Gates Open*
6:00pm Trunk-or-Treat, Costume Competition, Bake Sale, and Raffles Begin
6:55pm Raffle and Costume Competition Announced
7:10pm “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” showing
7:45pm Original Ghostbusters showing
*Guests may attend any parts of the night that they desire
For only $20 a car, you can enjoy all of the above activities while supporting a great cause! If you carpool with your friends, it’s only $5 a person! All of the proceeds from the night will go to Be the Match. The money will be used for ongoing medical research, expanding the registry, and helping cover costs of transplants. There will also be a booth where you can register to be a donor.
Get your ticket here, and hurry! The first 25 people to buy a ticket get two free t-shirts each! Once you click that link, you’ll see the following message:
For the thousands of people diagnosed every year with life-threatening blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma, a cure exists. Over the past 30 years, Be The Match, operated by the National Marrow Donor Program, has managed the most diverse marrow registry in the world. They work every day to save lives.
When you donate money to Be the Match, you save lives. Because of your financial gifts, more patients with blood cancers or other life-threatening diseases can get the care and support services they need, groundbreaking medical research can continue and donors can be added to the registry. The cure for blood cancer is in the hands of people like you. Help save a life.
So what can you do? Come out to the event. Invite family and friends to join you. And, if you’re willing, join the registry. People like Beth need you. Summer has given our community such a great chance to really make a difference and potentially save lives. I hope to see you all there!
Be the Match website: https://bethematch.org/
Be the Match Rockbridge Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bethematchsvu/
Be the Match Rockbridge TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@bethematch_rockbridge
Be the Match Fundraiser: Your Chance to be a Hero was originally published in The Herald on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.