People in Broxbourne are being urged to become bone marrow donors in a campaign launched by two sisters.
Rebecca and Rachel Hall, aged 17 and 22, from Stanstead Abbotts, are running a campaign to get more blood stem cell and bone marrow donors.
Their campaign was launched after a distant relative in Cumbria was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Their distant cousin, Alice Pyne, has written a list of things she wants to achieve before she dies, and one of these is to inspire more people to sign up to the donor list.
The girls met their distant cousin when her family organised a registration event in an aim to find a bone marrow match for her.
Rebecca said: “A match was found, but by that time Alice was too ill to have the transplant. If that match had been found sooner, she might have been able to have her transplant.
“We’ve been following her story and kept in touch with the family but I felt like I still wanted to do something to help her with the wishes on her bucket list as nothing else can be done, so that no other family goes through what her family have had to go through.”
Anthony Nolan is appealing for 10,000 young men to join its blood stem cell donor register, as men aged between 18 and 30 are the group most likely to be asked to donate.
Jenner Large, regional recruitment manager for the charity, said: “We can currently only find matching donors for half the people who need them.
“Crucially, men account for over 80 per cent of donations and younger donors are favoured by transplant doctors, so we particularly need to get more young men signed up.”