The Hillel Dance-a-thon That Saved a Life
When college student Alex Davidson attended a dance marathon hosted by the University of Maryland to raise money for Children’s National Hospital in 2013, the last thing he expected was to kick off a series of events that would save the life of a little girl.
But that’s exactly what he did.
“Hillel had sponsored Terp Thon that year and brought in the Gift of Life folks,” Alex recalled. “They had a table for people to get swabbed to join the bone marrow registry. I didn’t have a particular reason for swabbing — it just seemed like the right thing to do.”
Gift of Life is a nonprofit that works to cure blood cancers and other disorders through cellular therapy. The organization has teamed up with students on college campuses to facilitate donor recruitment drives for over two decades. Diversity is a critical part of the donor registration registry — the best chance of finding a match is between two people who share ethnicity or genetic heritage — and Jewish college students often run donor recruitment drives to connect other Jewish young adults with the registry.
Alex’s decision to get swabbed was spontaneous, and afterward, he put it out of his mind. He went on Birthright with Maryland Hillel during the summer of 2014, then stayed in Jerusalem for the rest of the break. When he returned to campus for his senior year, he got more involved with Hillel, thanks to the friends he’d made on his Birthright trip.
Then, in 2019, Gift of Life contacted Alex, telling him he was a potential match for a patient.
“That one didn’t end up moving forward with that patient,” Alex said.
Since being a potential match for even one person is so rare, Alex thought that was it. But three years later, he got one more call.
“I actually did the blood tests on my birthday,” Alex said. “And then, on my anniversary with my then-fiance, I got the call that they wanted to move forward.”
Alex’s match was a seven-year-old girl with severe aplastic anemia.
“That was one of the wildest parts of all of this,” Alex said. “To me, 2013, when I did my swab, wasn’t really that long ago. But she wouldn’t even be born for another few years.”
Less than a month after receiving the call that he was the match, Alex flew to New Jersey, where he underwent a harvesting procedure to collect his bone marrow that was transplanted into his recipient the next day.
For confidentiality reasons, Gift of Life only passes along limited information between the donor and recipient for the first several months after a donation. At first, all Alex knew was that his recipient was still alive. But after a year, he was given the opportunity to correspond with the recipient’s parents.
“Suddenly, I was emailing back and forth with her mom, and this mystery patient became a real person,” Alex said. “It wasn’t just, ‘Here’s your recipient.’ It was, ‘This is Addie, and she’s eight years old now, and she’s doing great.’ That was amazing.”
Months later, Alex finally met Addie, now nine, in person at the One Huge Night Gift of Life gala in New York, in front of a crowd of other Gift of Life donors, recipients, and supporters.
“It was a picture-perfect moment,” Alex said. “She’s such a sweet kid, so spunky and full of energy – it was amazing. Seeing so many other donor-recipient pairs that are still in touch opened my eyes to the fact that this wasn’t just a one-time thing. It’s a lifetime connection.”
After all, when he showed up at Terp Thon and had his cheek swabbed, making a lifetime connection wasn’t even something Alex considered. But it turns out five or six donor-recipient matches have since come out of that event.
“It’s such a small thing, and chances are, you won’t ever get a phone call,,” Alex said. “But I did it, and look what happened. When you have that opportunity, you should take it.”
We’re so happy for Alex and Addie, and grateful Hillel brought Gift of Life to campus to make their connection possible.
Learn more about Hillel International’s Gift of Life donor circle.