Students line up to find out if they are a ‘marrow’ match

BATON ROUGE, LA (NBC33) — Students at LSU got a chance to sign up to become bone marrow donors Tuesday.

Representatives from be the match met with students to teach them about the importance of donating bone marrow. Students ages 18 to 44 qualified to participate.

Students filled out paperwork and swabbed their checks to see if they were a match for people on the donors list. Event organizers say LSU is the perfect spot to find donors because of the diverse make up of its students.

"Each year we have over ten thousand patients that are diagnosed a disease that would cause them to need a bone marrow transplant,” Natalie Rowe, Be The Match, said. “We can only do those transplants if we have that diversity on the registry."

Organizers say their goal was to sign up 50 new people to the donor list.