Teresa Valdez Klein

We had it so good.

Dear friends,

My great friend Elyssa Kline's mother has leukemia and desperately needs a bone marrow transplant.  Family and friends are searching for a donor.  The possibility of finding a match is very small, so the more people that can be tested the better. The most likely genetic candidate would have a Jewish background of both Ashkenazi and Sepharic heritage.  Here's what anyone between the ages of 18 and 60 can do to try to help Sandee and other cancer patients whose lives might be saved if a bone marrow donor came forward.

1. Register online at https://www.giftoflife.org/Public/Online/Donor/Guidelines.aspx

2. Purchase a testing kit.  If you can't afford to pay the fee, you may use the following sponsorship code: KLEIN10 .  The test can be done at home--all it takes is a cheek swab.  The donation process itself involves a blood draw from the arm and an injection.     

3. Once you have registered, please email Barby, bsloven@giftoflife.org, and ask her to add you onto the Kline Family log.

Finally, if you're in the Philadelphia area, or know people who are, there's a free bone marrow donor drive for Sandee on Sunday, May 2nd at Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy, 272 S. Bryn Mawr Ave., Bryn Mawr, PA., from 10am-3pm.  Please see the flyer below.  

Thanks and all best,

Polly   

With pollsters concluding that trust in the government is at an all-time low, who do we still trust?

Apparently it's a thing now...

I was just a little girl, deserving of love and protection, like every other child, but I didn't know that. I thought I was different: unworthy, flawed, and fundamentally unlikeable. My bullies, and the adults who allowed their behavior to continue, taught me lessons that I'm still unlearning nearly 30 years later.

Lovely day.