On Thursday, May 21 2026, after the class of 2026’s graduation practice, Jesuit High School Sacramento will host its National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) Donor Drive. The first in school history, the drive seeks to enter students into a database of potential future bone marrow and blood stem cell donors for those in need of transplants.

Students and community members that are interested in participating will go through a simple process that enters them into a national registry of potential donors.

“The process itself actually only takes less than five minutes,” said event coordinator Ms. Amanda Smith. “When you’re saying yes to the registry, it’s basically like you’re saying yes to a list. ‘If somebody ever matches with me, I’d be willing to participate in that program and be a match for them.’ The participant gets a kit. They open it themselves. They’re gonna swab each cheek for 10 seconds;That’s it. They’re looking for only one [genetic] marker in this swab, so it doesn’t take much time.”

There are over 12,000 patients a year that are in need of a bone marrow transplant outside of their own family. Counted among them is a Jesuit community member: Eva Brabec. The 6-year-old daughter of Theology teachers Mr. Patrick Brabec and Ms. Sara Brabec will need a blood stem cell transplant in the future.

“[Eva] is six and she’s a spunky little girl who loves to dance, and loves her brother and her family, and is wildly creative and imaginative, and has a spectacular vocabulary,” Ms. Smith said. “She has something in her genetic makeup that her blood marrow isn’t quite making what it needs to make at the time. She is healthy. And yet she is going to need a blood marrow, stem cell transplant at some point.”

It’s incredibly important for many students to participate in the drive because the national database can only function with a large number of entries.

“A large percentage of the people who go on the registry actually never get matched with someone because it’s really specific,” Ms. Smith said. “It’s basically like you’re looking for an identically genetic sibling who’s not related to you at all. And so there’s so many factors on it, and it’s not like blood type where it can be a little bit more general. That’s why we have to get a large central donor base in order to match people.”

The drive will take place in the Welcome Center from 9 A.M. to 12:30 P.M. Seniors and community members that are interested in participating can learn more about the drive and NMDP. Participating only takes a few minutes, and has the potential to save lives.