Hillsdale Cancer Survivor Hosts
�Charmed For Charity� Event
To Help Support HLA Be The Match!

September 29, 2014

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RIDGEWOOD, NJ � Hillsdale resident Karen Takla-Farag beat cancer with the help of a volunteer marrow donor registered on the Be The Match bone marrow registry. In hopes of helping other patients find their cures, Karen will host a Charmed for Charity fundraising event which will help The HLA Registry on September 29th at Alex and Ani, a jewelry store in that sells bangle bracelets in Ridgewood.

Karen, the mother of a young son and a parishioner at St. John�s in Hillsdale, was diagnosed in December 2012 with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). When Karen�s friends and family heard of her diagnosis, they rallied to help Karen by hosting a marrow drive in her honor on January 27, 2013. That day 152 new members were added to The HLA bone marrow Registry, a member of the national Be The Match registry which recruits donors to the registry that are available for patients locally and worldwide.

In March 2014 Karen contacted The HLA Registry to says she was one-year post transplant thanks to her �angel� donor in Germany. �The first thing I want to be a part of is Be the Match � without my donor, I would never have gotten this far, and I want to help others,� she said.

The event will be held at Alex & Ani, 134 East Ridgewood Avenue, from 6 to 8 p.m. Fifteen percent of the proceeds will go to The HLA bone marrow Registry to help cover the costs of registering individuals to the registry. It costs about $100 to cover the cost of each new member added to the registry. Tax-deductible gifts allow more people to join the registry, giving more patients the hope of a cure. Alex and Ani, renowned for their philanthropy, have raised over 9 million dollars for non-profit organizations like The HLA Registry.

The HLA Registry at Community Blood Services relies on generous contributions from individuals, companies and organizations to help cover the cost of about $100 to add each new member to the Be The Match Registry. These tax-deductible gifts allow more people to join the registry, giving more patients hope for a cure.

If you can�t make the event you can call the store at 201-857-0911, let them know the event (Charmed For Charity) that you are ordering for and what you would like to purchase. The store will pull the bangles and ring them up during the event. Phone orders can be picked up after the event or shipped for $7.Click here to go to the event invite at Karen�s FaceBook page.

Information on how to join the registry and become someone�s �angel� will be available at the event or you can click here or call 1-800 336-3363 and speak to a Be The Match representative to learn more about how to join or make a tax-deductible contribution.

Be The Match Registry and The HLA Registry at Community Blood Services rely on your generous contributions to cover the cost of about $100 to add each new member to the Be The Match Registry. Your tax-deductible gift allows more people to join the registry, giving more patients hope for a cure.

Every day thousands of adults and children like Karen are diagnosed with leukemia, lymphoma, aplastic anemia, sickle cell anemia and other serious diseases that require stem cell transplants as a cure. Approximately 70 percent of those patients will not find matches within their own families and must turn to the Be The Match registry to find a donor. Click here to learn more.