A 10-year-old boy with leukemia, among other health ailments, is hosting a blood drive during the day tomorrow at the Richard Korpi Ice Rink in Bayonne.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
Dantae Rodriguez is a 5th grader at Lincoln Community School and enjoys singing in choir, art, swimming and rooting for the Philadelphia Eagles. But unlike most kids his age, he is battling leukemia, his family said in a statement promoting the event.
Overcoming the odds has been a regular part of Rodriguez’s life, as he was also born with salt-wasting congenital adrenal hyperplasia,a heart murmur, G6PD deficiency, Sotos Syndrome, and seizure disorder.
The ice rink is located at West 28th Street in Bayonne and the blood drive runs from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. tomorrow, February 29th.
According to the New York Blood Center, the event sponsor, it only takes one hour to donate, and a single donation can save multiple lives.
Nearly 2,000 donations are needed each day in New York and New Jersey alone, since roughly one in seven hospital admissions require a blood transfusion.
Those in need include: cancer patients, accident, burn, or trauma victims, newborn babies and their mothers, transplant recipients, surgery patients, chronically transfused patients suffering from sickle cell disease or thalassemia, and many more, the NYBC said.
