A 50-state odyssey to find bone marrow donors and spread awareness

So many cities. So many miles. So many lives to save.

SAM (Sharing America's Marrow), a collaboration of two sisters and a friend, is on a nationwide mission to sign up bone-marrow donors. It is a journey both personal and profound.

Five years ago, Sam Kimura, now 22, of Louisville, Ky., was diagnosed with a rare blood disease, aplastic anemia. She needed a bone-marrow transplant for a cure but couldn't find a match, not even with her sister and best friend, Alex Kimura, 24.

Alex described the day she learned she couldn't help Sam as "the worst day of my life."

Fortunately, alternative treatment has allowed Sam to manage her disease - and for the sisters to hatch a plan for, as Alex put it, "something big."

The two sisters and friend Taylor Shorten, 24, are on a yearlong sojourn to almost 200 cities in 50 states to spread awareness about the need for bone marrow, quash misinformation about the donation process, and sign up donors.

They were in the Philadelphia area last week. On Monday, they will be at Rutgers in New Brunswick and on Tuesday in Princeton.

"It's been great," said Sam, enjoying a sunny day off Sunday in Philadelphia. "It's something new every day, and it's great to spread the word as much as we can."

Since January, the trio and their van - the sisters sold their cars to lease it - have visited 41 cities. They've signed up about 5,700 donor candidates toward their goal of 50,000. They haven't found a match for Sam yet, but they've found matches for 10 other people.

Most of the time, Sam, who has a 50 percent chance of relapse, said she's not thinking about herself.

"It's definitely more the other people, the people who are desperately looking for a match," said Sam, who was a lacrosse player when she was diagnosed at 17.

Both women interrupted their lives to devote a year to the cause. Alex left a job with the Livestrong Foundation in Austin, Texas. Taylor came back from service work in Costa Rica. Sam has a semester left at Western Kentucky University before she earns her bachelor's degree in religious studies.

They've had financial support from Delete Blood Cancer, a New York City organization that registers potential marrow donors, as well as from grants and fund-raising. A lot of their stops have been at colleges. Their Philadelphia-area stops included the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, the Frankford Hall restaurant and pub in Fishtown, and Richard Stockton College in Atlantic County.

"It's been quite an adventure," said Alex, with "really high highs and really low lows."

Bone-marrow donation can be a tough sell, the young women have found.

"We get a lot of rejection," Alex said, because people think donating is painful. They tell people that donation happens under anesthesia and that much of what is donated are stem cells.

But then there are the successes - all the people who have signed up and who one day may save lives.

"It's been very rewarding," Alex said. "Knowing we are making a difference."

For more information on becoming a bone marrow donor, visit DeleteBloodCancer.org.

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@ritagiordano