Students and spectators at Fox Chapel High School’s home bocce match against Pine-Richland recently joined the effort to find a bone-marrow match for a 7-year-old Butler County boy suffering from a rare genetic disorder.
“I feel like this is a very easy way to help a child in need,” said Shannon Kearney of Aspinwall as she prepared to be swabbed to see if she matches with the boy. “I would hope that others would feel the same if it was my child, or someone in my family, who needed help.
The bocce match was the latest event to find a bone-marrow match for Jackson “Jax” Ramirez of Cranberry, who is the son of Missy Ramirez, a school psychologist in the Pine-Richland School District.
In October, the boy was diagnosed with IPEX, a rare genetic autoimmune disease that requires a bone marrow transplant. Most children with IPEX do not survive past age 2.
Erin Butkovic, the activities director for Fox Chapel, saw the bocce match against Pine-Richland as an opportunity to help find a match for the boy.
“Because of the security process to get into the building, we thought it would be a good idea to do the swabbing during the match after everybody is already in the building,” she said. “It also was easier for some of our seniors who are 18 years old to stop buy and get swabbed before they went home.”
People between the ages of 18 and 40 who want to arrange for a check swab to determine if they are a match can register by texting “JAX” to 61474 or through my.bethematch.org. The swab takes no more than 30 seconds.
Beth Sipe, a special education teacher at the high school, is also trying to help the Ramirez family with the financial impact caused by their son’s diagnosis by setting up a GoFundMe account.
Fox Chapel will be holding another Be the Match event to help Jax from 9:30 to 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 24. There is no need to register in advance to be swabbed.
The Be the Match event for Jax is being held in conjunction with a community blood drive scheduled for the large group instruction room from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
