In 2016, Rogers student Julia Downes dedicated her senior project to her cousin, Jamie Crowley, the former principal at Thompson Middle School, beloved community member, husband, and father of four, who was battling leukemia. Along with two classmates, Julia worked with Be the Match, now the National Marrow Donor Program, to give her fellow students the opportunity to get a cheek swab and join the national donor registry. Her best friend, Aliyah Jones, joined her in the effort.
In March 2023, almost seven years after first joining her best friend for a great cause, Jones was contacted by the organization as a potential stem cell donor for a young girl in San Diego, California, suffering from a rare form of blood cancer. At first, Jones thought the text message she received was spam. But when her mother was contacted by the same number a few days later, it became clear that it was real. With little information about what came next, Jones, a special education teacher in Fall River who is also working on a second master’s degree in education, didn’t hesitate. “I quickly called them back and said I would love to move forward.”
The process involved lengthy health questionnaires, which Jones described as negligible, taking only “half an hour out of my day,” and several in-person appointments to determine if she was healthy enough to be a donor. The process took several months, and by mid-summer of last year, she was informed by medical personnel that she was nearly a perfect match.
On the designated donation day in September 2023, at the Rhode Island Blood Center in Providence, Jones underwent a seven-hour procedure. IVs were inserted in both arms, and blood was removed from one arm, passed through a machine to separate out the stem cells, and then returned to her other arm. “It was a bit tough because I’m antsy and don’t like needles or blood, but it was just one day of my life,” she said. “I ended up sitting longer than I needed to and donated enough stem cells for her to receive another transplant if needed.”…