The Sunflower Fund - Friends of the South African Bone Marrow Registry Foundation

The Sunflower Fund was formed in 1999 in support of the SABMR and was inspired by Chris Corlett and Darren Serebro’s heroic struggle against leukaemia. It was formed by parents whose children had contracted leukaemia, and in some cases had lost their battle against it. Their aim was to secure financial support in order to increase the number of bone marrow stem cell donors in South Africa. With the odds of finding a donor being 1:100 000, the idea is to expand the registry to at least 100 000. You can help by joining the SABMR. All you have to do to be registered on the SABMR is to give two tubes of your blood. We need your fast response and long-term commitment.

The Sunflower Fund aims to educate and recruit a viable source of well informed potential bone marrow stem cell donors who are ethnically diverse, in an effort to save the lives of those needing a transplant when suffering from life-threatening blood disorders. It strives to maintain the associated donor records of the South African Bone Marrow Registry.

The Sunflower Fund carries the full responsibility nationally for raising the funds needed to meet the costs of all tissue typing of bone marrow donors for the purposes of increasing the SABMR and has played a major role in enabling the SABMR to expand dramatically from 1 200 to over 63,000 donors over the past 7 years. The Sunflower Fund is a well governed organisation managed by a highly competent Board of Directors comprising of individuals with a variety of skills and expertise. (Current Board comprises of Dr K. Begg (Chairman), T. Botha (CEO), Dr M. du Toit, Dr D. Ncayiyana, Dr J. Rossouw, Y. Naidoo , I. Wheeler, B. Jessop, G. Lovely (Treasurer).

The Sunflower Fund, originally founded in Cape Town in 1999, has launched Donor Recruitment & PR centres in Gauteng and Kwa-Zulu Natal, which help in the ongoing recruitment of donors, educating the public and fundraising events to ensure the SABMR continues to increase in numbers, demographic representation and quality of donors typed.

A passionate and dedicated team of staff now runs the Fund and a number of committed volunteers assist with the national call-centre, all awareness drives and fundraising events. Many recruitment drives are held at schools and corporate companies throughout South Africa . Pathcare and Ampath continue to take blood samples of new donors on an ongoing basis in the Western Cape. The South African National Blood Service (SANBS) continues to take blood samples of new donors in KZN, Gauteng and Northern Province regions. The NHLS and the SANBS continue to do the tissue typing tests for The Sunflower Fund. The Sunflower Fund could not operate without the wonderful support and co-operation received from the SA National Blood Service, NHLS, Pathcare and Ampath. The past year has been an exceptionally busy and productive one with regard to fundraising. Fundraising events during the year included our signature events: Annual Sunflower Golf Day, Miles for Marrow Cycle Ride, annual Sunflower Ball and National Bandana Day campaign. Many smaller events are held around S.A. throughout the year.

The Sunflower Fund thanks Pick 'n Pay for their ongoing commitment to National Bandana Day, where every South African is encouraged to wear a bandana to work, university or school to show their solidarity with those fighting leukaemia and to raise funds for tissue typing. The Minister of Education, Ms Naledi Pandor and Sunflower patron, The Most Reverend Desmond Tutu, Anglican Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town , endorse National Bandana Day.

The Sunflower Fund is committed to the continued recruitment of new donors, in full support of the SABMR, in order to reach our mutual goal in the interests of all South Africans suffering from life-threatening blood disorders such as leukaemia.

Organizational Profile
The formation of The Sunflower Fund in 1999 in support of the South African Bone Marrow Registry (SABMR) was inspired by the heroic struggle against leukaemia of two brave young men, Darren Serebro (1997) and Chris Corlett (2000). It was started by a group of concerned parents whose children had contracted leukaemia, and sadly, in some cases had lost their battle against it.

Chris painted the original “Sunflowers of Hope” painting while in isolation and copies of this now hang in all the transplant units in South Africa , as well as one in New Zealand and Australia . Chris saw donors as the “seeds of hope” for patients suffering as he was – hence the name “Sunflowers of Hope”

“Sunflowers of Hope” was painted by Chris Corlett before his death. Others, in their days of darkness, have done the same.

Let the sunflower be a tribute to all those that have not survived and a symbol of hope to all patients in the future.

The fight for hope by increasing the SABMR to help others was continued tirelessly by Mervyn Serebro (father of Darren) and Tina Botha (mother of Chris), who is now CEO of The Sunflower Fund .

Chris Corlett, Darren Serebro, Lindy Anderson, Kate Tomlinson, Nadhir Arnold, Harlin Lepotha, Natalie Colyvas, Turner Kirkland and young baby James Edmonds are all children who fought so bravely but did not survive – largely due to the fact that donors were not found early enough or not at all. There are many, many others, who have been diagnosed with leukaemia and other life threatening blood disorders, whose only hope is a bone marrow stem cell transplant from a healthy donor.

The Sunflower Fund's short-term goal is to increase the SABMR to 100 000 donors and at a cost
of R1000 per donor, a funding amount of:

R1 250 000 per month,
R15 000 000 per year, and
R60 000 000 over four years is needed!

Please consider this opportunity to assist in motivating potential bone marrow donors to share a little
and help save a life. There is no such thing as a small donation – every cent is appreciated.

MISSION
The Sunflower Fund aims to educate and recruit a viable source of well informed potential bone marrow stem cell donors who are ethnically diverse, in an effort to save the lives of those suffering from life-threatening blood disorders. It strives to maintain the associated donor records of the South African Bone Marrow Registry.

The South African Bone Marrow Registry (SABMR) is a national organization with the responsibility to process requests for haematopoietic stem cells (HSC) from unrelated donors emanating locally and from abroad. The initiative to establish the SABMR was taken by Professor Ernette du Toit and Professor Peter Jacobs in 1991.

The SABMR is a member of the World Marrow Donor Association (WMDA) and has been designated the National HUB centre for Africa , through which incoming and outgoing requests for donors are channelled.

The South African gene pool is unique and thus extremely valuable to the rest of the World. The SABMR is regularly approached to provide donors for African and Asian patients and patients of mixed ethnic origin.

Regrettably, the SABMR does not receive any government funding towards the cost of tissue typing the blood samples and exists solely on donations from the public. Without financial support the work of the SABMR would come to a complete halt and bone marrow transplantation would no longer be a treatment option in South Africa .

In addition to routine blood donor clinics scheduled by The South African National Blood Service (SANBS), there are a number of special services of which you can participate in special bleeding programmes aimed at addressing specific needs. These include:

The Blood Service and Bone Marrow Donation
In some centres SANBS collects peripheral blood stem cells from donors identified through the SABMR, in addition to testing & registering potential bone marrow donors.