Gift of Life

About

Gift of Life was founded in 1991 to seek a matching bone marrow donor for leukemia patient Jay Feinberg. The last donor tested turned out to be a perfect match!  Since then, the charity has evolved into a vehicle for donor recruitment, focused on the international Jewish community. 

In 2005, Gift of Life launched a cord blood donation program (www.JCORD.org) that collected from Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY.  The cost of the program was borne by Gift of Life fund-raising.  In order for their cord blood donations to be listed on the Be The Match network, obstetricians who collected for Gift of Life had to undergo training and regular proficiency testing. In March 2013, Gift of Life suspended collections. Their existing inventory is maintained at the cord blood laboratory of the U. Mass. Memorial Medical Center.