There will be a huge benefit for Gabe tomorrow at the Whealdon Estates retirement community between 12:30 and 7pm, with all of the proceeds going directly to the Hilliard family!  Choose from a spaghetti or jambalaya plate, with a salad, vegetable, roll, and dessert, for just $5.00!

In addition, there will be a lot of activities going on in the evening between 5 and 7:

• Solomon will be performing
• Guest speakers from St. Jude and L&L Foundation
• Live coverage from Channel 2 at 6pm

You will also be able to support the family with the purchase of t-shirts ($10), wrist bands ($2), and some gorgeous 3D Tiger Earrings ($10)!

And, the first $500 raised will be matched 100%!

Please see the flyer below and come out to help support the family!

Superman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, Batman…  sure, their status as Superhero is well-deserved, but you don’t have to be a fictional character in tights and a cape to save lives.  You can actually take the first step by doing the simplest of things:  swabbing the inside of your mouth with a Q-tip.

Be the Match is the National Marrow Registry Program.  If you’ve ever heard someone talk about having a friend needing a bone marrow transplant because of a serious disease, and having to search “the database” for a potential match… this is the database they’re talking about.  It’s crucial to a lot of very sick people, including Denham Springs teen Gabe Hilliard, that there is a group of heroes willing to step up to save the life of someone in need.

Listen to what Shaquille O’Neal, Trent Johnson, and Dale Brown have to say about Be the Match:

You can be the one to save a life. If that’s not the definition of a hero, what is?

Denham Springs High School student Gabe Hilliard is in treatment for Hodgkins Lymphoma for the second time.  He’s awaiting transplant, thanks to a match found through the Be the Match registry.  The Hilliard family wants to be able to give other families the same hope for a full and healthy life that they’ve been given, thanks to an anonymous hero.  You can be that life-saver for someone else’s child or someone else’s parent.

And it all starts with a Q-tip.

Please join us on Wednesday, April 6th at the LSU Student Union’s Royal Cotillion Ballroom, between 9am and 3pm.  If you’re between the ages of 18 and 60 and you meet the medical guidelines, you’re eligible to sign up for the Be the Match registry.  We can answer your questions about the marrow donation process and what happens if you get “the call” saying that you’re a match.

Please Help Gabe in his quest to find heroes…heroes just like you!

Here is the link to the flyer if you’d be so kind as to print it and share it with co-workers, your church, your fraternity or sorority, or anyone else you think might be interested!

We hope you can join us and be a hero for someone in need!

Just a note to all of our HelpGabe friends regarding the upcoming LSU bone marrow drive:

For logistical reasons, it was decided today that we’re going to eliminate the April 5th drive date at LSU and focus our efforts on April 6th instead.

The location of the April 6 drive remains the same:  it’ll be in the Royal Cotillion Ballroom at the LSU Student Union.

We have Volunteer LSU trying to round up some volunteers within the LSU student body, but we may not know until the last minute what kind of response they’re able to get.

If you are reading this and you have the ability to work one of the following shifts on Wednesday, April 6th, please either leave a comment or send us an email!  Thanks in advance!:

Shift One:  8:30 – 12:00 (Thanks to Heather W., Lorraine C., and Kerrie and Mark H. for signing up!)
Shift Two:  11:30 – 3:00 (Thanks to Connie J., Jean and Glenn F., Suzan P., Amy E., and Jackie S. for signing up!)

On Saturday we had our first GabeStrong bone marrow drive, in Denham Springs at North Park.  I’m happy to say that it was a great success, with 71 potential donors added to the national marrow donor registry!  Jennie and Gabe visited with us for a while (he looked great, btw!).  Gabe filmed a short interview with WBRZ which aired on Saturday evening.  We’re hoping to get a copy of the clip to link to here!

We really enjoyed getting to visit with the folks who stopped by, including Trevor Vampren from Team Trevor and his mom, Pam, who joined the marrow registry on Saturday, and WBRZ reporter Rob Krieger and his intern, who both also swabbed and signed up on Saturday!  Our volunteers did an outstanding job with their stations — not an easy task because we stayed busy most of the day.  Thanks for a job well done to all our crew, to Chad Carlton for the loan of the huge canopy (a life-saver!), and to Joel and Tanya Leblanc for delivering it and helping to set it up, and for loaning us tables, too!

Natalie from Be The Match reports that we collected $838.00 in donations at the drive on Saturday (in addition to sales of GabeStrong tees and bracelets)!  That will process another 16+ new bone marrow registry signup mouth swab kits at LSU!  $500 of that was a generous donation from Dr. David J. Wyatt, M.D., Orthopaedic Surgeon with the Zachary Orthopaedic Care Center (“World-class care just around the corner” — give him a call to schedule an appointment at (225) 658-9996)!

We’d also like to thank Missy and her awesome crew at the Denham Springs Chili’s!  Our Giveback Day Monday brought in $200 to Be the Match to help fund our LSU drive!  Thanks also to everyone who came out to enjoy great food, great service, and great prices on Monday night!  Please keep Chili’s in mind any day you’re making plans to eat out for lunch or dinner — they support many local causes and are huge national supporters of St. Jude!

Last of all but certainly not least:  we received a $250 donation today from the Denham Springs Rotary Club – thanks go out to these awesome folks and to Darlene Shingleur for suggesting our cause to her organization!

Continue reading for more pics from Saturday!

I’m happy to share with you some great news regarding Gabe’s scans today:  they show “dramatic improvement,” according to his doctor!  The two tiny spots still there may disappear within a week since radiation continues to work even after the treatments stop.  Next:  the transplant team meets to discuss plans for transplant!

Jennie asks prayers for the “wisdom of the transplant team and the best possible plan for Gabe’s complete healing.”  Please sign Gabe’s Caring Bridge Guestbook and let the family know they’re in your thoughts and prayers!

Today is a very important day for our patient and hero, Gabe Hilliard:  he’ll be receiving scans at St. Jude to prove (we hope and pray) that the latest round of treatments have left his body completely cancer-free, so his doctors can proceed with plans for a bone marrow / stem cell transplant.  The scans will be at 11am (CT) today.

This is obviously a very stressful, very emotional day for the Hilliard family and they need our support.  Please pray for clear scans, and please visit Gabe’s Caring Bridge site and sign the guestbook there to let Gabe and his family know that you’re thinking about them and praying for them.  Thank you!

Who wants to cook on a Monday?  Let Chili’s do the cooking for you, and 10% of your order total will go to Be the Match to help fund the Denham Springs and LSU marrow drives being held on behalf of Gabe Hilliard!

You must bring a copy of the Giveback flyer with you for Be the Match to receive credit — print your copy here!

This offer is valid from 11am to 11pm on Monday (3/14)  at the Denham Springs Chili’s only.  Online ordering for takeout is available here (bring your flyer when you pick up your order).

They have some great lunch specials for just 6 bucks, and don’t forget their 2 for $20 dinner special (for an appetizer and two entrees)!  But who are we kidding?  You KNOW you want their famous baby-back ribs at $16.99 — hey, it’s for a good cause!    And Chili’s is very affordable for families – their kids menu is an awesome value at $4.59:  choose from a main entree like cheese quesadillas, a chicken sandwich, or a hamburger, etc., plus they’ll get a side AND a drink!

Get the whole office together and place an order at Chili’s for lunch on Monday…then bring the whole family for supper Monday night! Got a GabeStrong tee?  Wear it and show your pride!  See you there!

Thanks to the generosity of Lamar Advertising and the hard work of their design team, facilitated by our awesome friend Liz V. (herself the mom of a cancer survivor), you’ll be seeing three electronic billboards featuring Gabe’s handsome, smiling face in the Baton Rouge area starting Sunday!

Look for them on Hwy. 190 near Juban, Essen Lane at Anselmo, and Hwy. 173 near I-10 in Prairieville.

We have staff trained for our first marrow registry signup drive (Denham Springs, 3/12 at North Park), however, we still have a few immediate needs to make it successful — please email if you can help:

• We need a couple of tent canopies to cover our tables (we asked the Sheriff’s office to use theirs but it’s already booked).  We will be on concrete so anchoring them may be tricky.  Help, someone?
• Do you have any media contacts (someone who works for a newspaper, TV station, or radio station)?  We need to get the word out!
• Can you help spread the word about the Denham marrow drive?  Add it to your school newsletter, church bulletin, neighborhood association newsletter, or a community calendar!  Post it on Facebook!  Tell your friends!
• Do you or your spouse work for a company that matches donations or provides donations for volunteer hours?  Please let us know so we can try to work something out!
• Do you own a business?  Would you be interested in a corporate sponsorship?  BeTheMatch.org will give you a tax write-off and we’ll give you marketing exposure in our flyers, the website, printed ads, and potentially the national Marrow.org website.  $250 will get your logo on our flyers — and we’ll provide some to your business so your customers can see that you support this important community health event!
• Do you work for a restaurant? Would they set up a Be the Match Day with a portion of the sales going to fund our marrow drives in Denham and at LSU?  Your restaurant would get the business of a huge community of loyal Gabe Hilliard supporters as well as the great PR that comes from supporting a worthy charity devoted to saving lives.  Chili’s in Denham has stepped up to offer a “giveback day” for Be the Match on Monday, 3/14.  Your restaurant could be next!
• Can you make a tax-deductible contribution to Be the Match (the National Marrow Donor Program) in Gabe’s name at this link?  It will help pay for our bone marrow drives.  ANY amount is appreciated!

These days, it’s all about networking…not just who you know, but also who your friends know…and THEIR friends! YOU can make a difference just by helping to spread the word about HelpGabe.com!  Send your friends a quick email inviting them to check out HelpGabe.com and see if there’s anything they can do to help!  Put a link to HelpGabe.com on your Facebook wall!  Start a conversation with a coworker with, “You wouldn’t by any chance know anybody who could…”  Get the conversation started and help us Help Gabe save lives!