News RoundUp

The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation will donate $17 million to the National Center for Civil and Human Rights for a 20,000 square foot expansion and new programming at the Downtown campus.

Continued from Page 6 marathon during her admission — 738 laps around the hospital’s Blood and Marrow Transplant unit.

Dr. Watkins said Sofia and her family have been “absolutely amazing” throughout Sofia’s journey. Sofia, in turn, thanks her family, friends and her medical team for their support and care.

“My nurses would even come in on their days off to spend time with me and to watch ‘The Bachelor’ together. They were my friends in some of the hardest moments and motivated me,” Sofia said.

Now, at age 16, Sofia is celebrating hitting the one-year milestone since getting her transplant and has no detectable leukemia. She has been removed from transplant-related medication.

The City of Atlanta’s is reforming its public kiosk program to create more opportunities for entrepreneurs and micro-businesses. The program, managed by the Department of City Planning, contains 17 brick-and-mortar kiosks located on sidewalks throughout Downtown where small business owners may sell retail and concession items to passersby.

Sofia and Bella are using their experience as a way to educate their peers about bone marrow transplants and ways to protect immunocompromised and vulnerable populations, especially during the fight against COVID-19. They’ve organized blood drives and have encouraged people to register as donors.

Meanwhile, Sofia says she is “feeling and doing great.”

“The recovery from a bone marrow transplant is a long one. I’ve had to rebuild my immune system from scratch since all the vaccines I got as a baby are gone,” Sofia said. “It will take about two years for me to be fully revaccinated, but I’ve started getting my vaccines and am off to a great start.”

State Farm Arena has announced it is the first sports and entertainment venue in the country to successfully become Sharecare Health Security Verified, a certification process developed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The newly formed Buckhead Exploratory Committee (becnow.com) has formed to explore potential cityhood or annexation into another municipality.

Help Save A Life

When patients don’t have a matched sibling for a blood and marrow transplant doctors search the National Marrow Donor Program registry for other possible donors. The NMDP has been focused on outreach in Atlanta, according to Dr. Benjamin K. Watkins, a pediatric hematologist and oncologist at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

“Unfortunately, there are significant disparities in finding a matched donor in the registry based on a patient’s racial or ethnic group,” he said.

White Europeans have about a 75 percent chance of having a perfectly matched unrelated donor while other groups including African American, African, Black Caribbean, and Black South and Central American have less than a 20 percent chance of having a matched donor, Dr. Watkins said.

“We have been pushing to find ways to address the disparities given that Atlanta has such a large Black population,” he said. “One of the ways we can do this is by signing up more people on the registry.”

Learn about bone marrow donation at NMDP.org.