On June 4th 2013, myself and Love Hope Strength Foundation in partnership with Delete Blood Cancer UK are hosting a stem cell donor recruitment drive in the Houses of Parliament aimed at getting as many British MP’s as possible (including the Prime Minister hopefully), to sign up as potential stem cell donors. It will be a major opportunity to send a positive message to the entire nation.
The part you can play is to write to your local MP and ask him or her to attend the event at Room R in Portcullis House, Westminster on June 4th between 2pm and 6pm. It’s really simple to do and is as easy as visiting www.writetothem.com and typing in your postcode. The name of your local representative will come up and there will be a simple box to post your letter in (see below), fill out the address form – press send and that’s it! So easy!
LHS has been campaigning for this day for many years and it is so exciting to feel that all the hard work and effort made possible with the support of Delete Blood Cancer UK and so many others like you, is finally coming to fruition.
Thank you so much for your support.
Mike Peters
The Letter for you to send via www.writetothem.com is here:
Dear (Please fill in the name of your local Member of Parliament),
Stem Cell Donor Recruitment Event, Portcullis House –Tuesday 4th June 2013
As a member of your constituency, I am writing to inform you about a great new partnership between British charity ‘Love Hope Strength Foundation’ (LHSF) and ‘Delete Blood Cancer UK’ and to ask if you will register as a potential stem cell donor at the Love Hope Strength / Delete Blood Cancer Donor Recruitment event in Room‘R’ at Portcullis House on 4th June, and thus to provide an exemplary platform to showcase the start of this great work in the UK.
As you may be aware, half the people in Britain who need a lifesaving stem cell donor do not find a match and it is my hope that this new partnership will hugely grow the number of UK donors and significantly improve the chances of patients across the UK and worldwide by having a UK donor.
Delete Blood Cancer UK’s age bracket for potential donors is 17- 55 which also means that most people in Britain are now eligible to become a donor. It’s a quick and simple process for those in this age bracket and in good general health and only takes few minutes – potential donors can fill in a simple consent form and swab their cheeks with a cotton swab to determine their tissue type. Their details are then stored anonymously on a national register.
It is my hope that you will represent our community, register and further inspire other MP’s, individuals and families alike to become potential life savers (and to further raise awareness that being a stem cell donor in this day and age can be as simple as giving blood and in most cases virtually painless).
You may also be aware of our joint Party leaders support for other heartfelt campaigns in the past, for example when the Prime Minister, Ed Milliband and others backed the late Pride of Britain winner Alice Pyne’s bone marrow donor campaign in 2011. I hope that on June 4th at the Parliamentary donor drive, aimed at UK Members of Parliament in Room ‘R’ at Portcullis House between 2 and 6pm, you will find the time to join some prominent British musicians, cancer patients, survivors and celebrities in sending a unified message to the whole country and become a potential stem cell donor that day, thus providing a role model for the rest of the house, and for the country and our community.
Love Hope Strength and Delete Blood Cancer are hoping to encourage and support thousands of people in the UK to become potential stem cell donors and to give blood cancer patients in need of a donation a second chance at life.
Love Hope Strength Foundation was begun by Mike Peters who is the lead singer with two internationally renowned British rock bands (The Alarm and Big Country). Mike is also a Leukaemia survivor who may one day need a transplant and after his diagnosis in 2005, he set up LHSF to help to support those British nurses and doctors who saved his life. The first LHSF event began with Snowdon Rocks in Wales in 2007 to support the North Wales Cancer Centre where Mike Peters was and still is being treated. That same year the the charity was registered in the USA and began rolling out the Love Hope Strength message via musical expeditions to Mt. Everest, Kilimanjaro and Mt. Fuji, building cancer centres in Tanzania and Nepal for those less fortunate than ourselves in Britain, along the way. In 2010, LHSF partnered with Delete Blood Cancer in the USA and began hosting successful donor drives across America.
In three years, this unique partnership in the USA has inspired 35,000 new donors to join the registry (via LHSF) and discovered over 500 potentially lifesaving matches. Delete Blood Cancer UK, is part of the DKMS Germany family of organisations worldwide which was founded more than 20 years ago around the case of blood cancer patient Mechtild Harf. Her need inspired her husband Peter Harf and her physician Prof. Gerhard Ehninger to set up DKMS to provide a source of donors worldwide for people in Mechtild’s situation. Today, DKMS works internationally and has recruited more than 3.68 million registered donors so far and gave 36,000 patients a second chance of life. They won’t stop their work until they have found a match for every patient who needs an unrelated transplant.
I sincerely hope that you will consider becoming a potential stem cell donor and support us in inspiring the nation to ‘Get On The List’.
Yours sincerely,
Your name
