TORONTO — Shari Ichelson Silverman and Yael Chapman have one thing in common. They don’t take no for an answer.
When Ichelson Silverman, 34, found out she had leukemia, she refused to stop fighting.
When she was told that her only hope was a bone marrow transplant, she became determined. Not just to find herself a bone marrow donor, but to help everyone on the donor list, her father said.
“After we found out she needed the transplant, she… said, ‘Daddy, you have to find me a match,’” said Mike Ichelson. “I had no idea how I was going to do that. I said, ‘Yes, honey, I will.’ She said, ‘Daddy, if I’m not here, if I don’t make it, you have to promise you won’t stop looking. That will be my legacy.’”
This is how Shari’s Mission, an organization that tries to find bone marrow matches, was born.
And this is what Chapman, a Grade 11 student at the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto, is refusing to give up on.
Chapman, 16, first learned about Shari’s Mission from a family friend. She attended a bone marrow drive last October, but was told that she was too young to be tested.
“I think that sometimes, as a teenager, I find it a little frustrating. You can have a lot of fervour and you want to get involved and change the world, but it’s not always that simple,” she said.
But, like Ichelson Silverman, the teen is resolute. Since she couldn’t get tested, she decided to organize a drive of her own, which takes place on Feb. 7 at Beth Sholom Synagogue.
“I e-mailed the shul at 11:30 at night, and the next night I had e-mails from three people. It just took off within a week,” she said, adding that she’s part of the shul’s youth council.
Chapman understood the importance of Shari’s Mission when she met Ichelson Silverman and her father at the bone marrow drive in October.
“It was really interesting to actually get to meet her. You hear about people all the time. It’s very rare that you actually see the cause,” she said.
While the drive at Beth Sholom is an important initiative to Shari’s Mission, Chapman and the shul decided to go a step further. They’ll be helping Ichelson and his daughter create bone-marrow-drive kits which will include step-by-step instructions on how to organize a drive. The kits will be sent out to synagogues and churches nationwide.
It doesn’t take much to get tested at a bone marrow drive, Ichelson said. Drives, which are run by organizers such as Chapman and experienced volunteers, ask community members aged 17 to 50 to do a swab test. This means each person will be asked to swab their cheeks. The swab will be tested and, if a match is found, the person will be called in for a blood test. As of now, there are more than 800 people in need of bone marrow donors in Canada. Often times, this number will only go down as people die, Ichelson said.
Since Ichelson Silverman is an Ashkenazi Jew, she has about a 70 per cent chance of finding a match.
“The other 30 per cent keeps me awake at night,” her father said.
This is why, when Shari’s Mission was started last year, Ichelson and his daughter reached out to the Jewish community first. But the organization is not a Jewish charity.
“There’s a huge misconception that it’s a Jewish organization,” Ichelson said. “No, we’re not. Shari said, ‘You’ve got to get everybody off the list.’ We’re going beyond the Jewish community.”
Ichelson is reaching out to businesses and various communities, including the Chinese and Latin communities.
Shari’s Mission is currently looking for volunteers to start chapters throughout the country.
For more information, e-mail [email protected]. The bone marrow drive at Beth Sholom will be held on Feb. 7 at 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. To volunteer, call 416-783-6103.
