Help a NJ Mom Find a Stem Cell Match

Melissa Clifton has never met Shira Klein but something about her story, a mother of three battling Hodgkin’s lymphoma and desperately in need of a stem cell donor, "tugged at (her) heart."

"She is any one of us," said Clifton, an Oceanport mom, in an e-mail to Patch explaining why she is rallying around the effort to find Klein a match for a transplant by organizing a donor drive at her Shrewsbury business, Arch brow +beauty bar.

Potential donors can go to Arch, 782 Broad St., on Saturday, Oct. 13 from 11 a.m to 5 p.m. to register as a stem cell donor with a quick swab inside the mouth.

This will be the second transplant for Klein, who lives in Marlboro. The initial procedure used her own stem cells and temporarily paused the disease until a recent recurrence created the need for a donor.

Clifton said that a close friend of hers had a stem cell transplant, which brought Klein's story that much more "close to her heart.

"I can't believe how many young people have lymphoma," she wrote.

Smiles4Shira, organized to find a donor for Klein, is planning to hold drives all over the state, but if you can't make a drive, it's simple to donate at home.

You can request a swab kit from one of the following organizations, and simply mailing back the kit will register you as a national donor:

• www.getswabbed.org 
• http://marrow.org/
• http://www.giftoflife.org/

There, you can also find information about how to host a drive.

"Every day amazing women come through the doors of Arch," said Clifton of her customers. "I know if we come together and we could possibly save Shira and many others in the process."

Follow Shira's story through Smiles4Shira on Facebook, where you can receive updated information about donation drives and more.