Donor drive to help Telford boy's cancer fight
A Telford community has turned out in force to try to help a 12-year-old boy with leukaemia. Friends of Khaleel Khan's family organised a blood cancer donor drive at Asda in Donnington in the hope that a bone marrow donor can be found for the youngster.
Men and women of all ages, some who know the family, many who don't, joined the register after the superstore allowed the cafe to be used to potential matches and take swabs from them for testing.
Khaleel is undergoing treatment and urgently needs a transplant, but his family, from Trench, has been told the odds of securing a donor are less than 20 per cent because he is mixed race.
Those who joined the register on Friday night said they had been touched by Khaleen's plight.
Mark Turner, 40, from Wrockwardine Wood, said his sister had children of mixed race, making him even more determined to try to help.
"You always say you are going to sign up but it is only when you know about someone who has leukaemia that it makes you realise how important it is to try to help," he said. "If I am not a match for Khaleel, I might be for someone else, who knows."
His 14-year-old daughter, Janaya, is too young to go on the register but said she had bought the special Khaleel wristbands to help the blood cancer cause.
Whitney Hough, 24, from Donnington said that if her 18-month-old son, Kayson, was poorly she would hope that people would do the same for him.
That was also the view of 25-year-old Warren Jones, from Seisdon, Wolverhampton. He and 45-year-old Cristian Alexandrescu both work at the Lilleshall Sport Centre and called into Asda to do some shopping.
"We both independently heard the tannoy appeal about the little boy, asking people to sign up for the register and both found ourselves standing next to each other waiting for the saliva test," Warren said.
One of the organisers of the donor drive, Gemma Elsmore said the response had been brilliant. She and her extended family gave up their evening to deal with a steady queue of potential donors.
"I have known Kelly, Khaleel's mum, since we were at school and I work at the Trench Lock nursery where his brothers and sisters attended."
She said her family was also taking part in a 10k or marathon at Blackpool next month to raise money for the Race against Blood Cancer charity.
