Eight years ago, Sacramento State alumna Lizette Jara received a phone call from Blood Source asking her if she wanted to save a life.

She was told her DNA was a match for a mother with three children from New York who was in desperate need of a bone marrow donor.

Jara had registered to become a donor at Sac State months before and decided to go through with donating. To this day, she is glad to have had the opportunity to save a mother’s life.

Today, Sac State students continue to provide patients with life-threatening illnesses a second chance at life by registering to become bone marrow donors through part of Nu Alpha Kappa’s philanthropy.

Jara is one of many Sac State students who have been providing patients with life-threatening illnesses a second chance at life.

Just knowing I was able to save a life was enough,” Jara said. “Throughout the process, I was reminded I had a choice, so it was always in my hands. Now, its just crazy how all of her blood is my DNA and only her skin is hers.”

Jara said it is important for people to be informed about the process and she is glad Nu Alpha Kappa are helping since many people do not register because they believe there are big risks like becoming paralyzed.

Nu Alpha Kappa’s community service officer George Cairo said his fraternity’s philanthropy has been bone marrow registry since the 90s when they noticed the Latino population had a low rate of registered donors.

“We decided to work with organizations like Blood Source by helping advertise and be the manpower to get people of different cultures, especially Latinos to register,” Cairo said.

According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, bone marrow is the tissue inside bones which contains stem cells that develop into red blood cells and carry white blood cells throughout the body to fight infections and blood clots.

A bone marrow transplant replaces a person’s bad bone marrow. These transplants are used to treat patients with immune deficiency diseases, leukemia, sickle cell anemia and other severe blood diseases.

Cairo said Nu Alpha Kappa members help register people in two ways which include volunteering in the annual Blood Source event on campus where blood donations and bone marrow registries are accepted.

They also hand out information about bone marrow transplants once a year during their “Be a Match Registry” event which took place April 8.

During the event, members of Nu Alpha Kappa stood in the quad and informed students about patients who are in need of bone marrow donors. To further encourage students to register, they usually bring children, who are Blood Source patients and in need of a donor, to campus with them.

 Nu Alpha Kappa’s public relations chair, Carlos Lona, said bone marrow transplants are very difficult to get because to save someone’s life, the DNA needs to be very similar to the patients’, which is why they prioritize to register students from different ethnic backgrounds.

“It is important for multicultural students to register, since the likelihood of a patient getting a match is very low,” Lona said.

This year, Nu Alpha Kappa members collected 47 registries with the majority being Hispanic.

According to U.S Health and Human Services, every year, more than 20,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with illnesses that need a bone marrow transplant.

Thirty percent of those patients are able to be matched with relatives, but the other 70 percent need others to donate. Those that need others to donate are usually from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds.

Speech Pathology major Kristina Bravo said she registered during the Nu Alpha Kappa’s registry event because she knows how it feels to be in need of a donor.

“My niece had some type of cancer and needed a bone marrow donor,” Bravo said. “She was hospitalized for a long time and it was so hard to accept that none of us were a match, not even her parents.”

Bravo said her niece’s life was saved because a field worker registered after hearing from other workers that Bravo’s family was looking for donor to save a 2-year-old’s life.

“A life is very valuable, and if I can do something as simple like donating my bone marrow to save a person’s life, then sign me up,” Bravo said. “I am glad [Nu Alpha Kappa] held this event and I hope more students decide to help save a life.”

For more information on registering to become a bone marrow donor visit the Blood Source website at bloodsource.com.