One day 10 years ago, when Adam Reingold was a student at the University of Arizona, he walked past a sign asking people to submit to a quick cheek swab test for the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation registry. Eager to meet a philanthropy commitment for his fraternity, Reingold went in.
Five months ago, Reingold, now 29 and the chief operating officer at Beth Jacob Congregation in Irvine, learned from the registry that he was a match for a leukemia patient who needed his stem cells for a shot at survival.
Last month, the Foster City native donated the needed cells.
“Now I get to check off ‘helping to save a life’ on my bucket list,” Reingold said in a recent phone interview. “That’s amazing, just a tremendous feeling.”
A federal law prohibits stem cell donors from knowing the identity of the person who received them for one full year. “I was told only that I was a match for a 51-year-old woman with acute myelogenous leukemia,” Reingold said. “I also was told it’s likely that my stem cells went to another Ashkenazi Jew. That adds a beautiful level of connection, but whoever it is, a woman is getting a new chance at life because of something I did.”
Reingold’s actions didn’t surprise Judy Garb, the director of early childhood education at the Peninsula JCC in Foster City. She has known Reingold since he was in her preschool class, and later she worked with him when he ran a summer youth program.
“Adam is a terrific young man, very special,” Garb said. “And whatever he does, he does with all his heart.”
The Gift of Life now sends out free home swab tests, but the organization also has held more than 3,770 recruitment drives, including the one that Reingold came across in 2002.
“When I got that call after 10 years saying I was a match, I was shocked,” Reingold said. “I was living in Los Angeles, heading to a movie — but I made the decision in one hour to move forward with the donation.”
Reingold was sent to a lab the next day for tests. During the 12 days he had to wait to get the results, he accepted the job at Beth Jacob and started making plans to move to Irvine. When the call came that he was still a match, Reingold learned that he would receive drugs to boost his stem cell production — drugs that would be injected twice a day for four days by a nurse — and then he would be flown to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston for the donation procedure.
The side effects from those drugs include bone and joint pain.
“I didn’t feel anything until the fourth day, and even then the side effects didn’t last long,” Reingold said. “Besides, I figured anything I was feeling was nothing compared to what this woman with leukemia somewhere in the world was feeling.”
On April 5, Reingold underwent the 10-hour donation procedure in Boston. “They serve lunch, you watch movies, and it’s all easy and relatively painless,” he said. A representative from the Gift of Life foundation was with him the entire time. “At one point, a nurse thanked me for my donation,” he said. “That was a real emotional moment.”
Reingold grew up in Foster City, attending Peninsula Temple Beth El in San Mateo with his family. His parents, Sally and Bob Reingold, are retired and still live in Foster City. His older sister, Michelle Reingold, lives in San Francisco and works in public relations in Pleasanton.
After graduating from the University of Arizona in 2005, Reingold served as campaign coordinator at the Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto from 2006-2008. In 2009, he enrolled in the American Jewish University, where last May he earned an MBA in nonprofit management.
The Gift of Life, based in Boca Raton, was founded in 1995 by Jay Feinberg after his own four-year search for a match for a bone marrow transplant. Today the registry has more than 201,000 donors and has facilitated more than 2,400 matches for patients in 40 countries. Gift of Life (www.giftoflife.org) is an associate donor registry of the National Marrow Donor Program.
“I want people to know about this organization, and to know that donating stem cells is easy and relatively painless — yet it makes such a difference,” Reingold said. “Some donor paid the $54 it cost to process my cheek swab test, and now I can’t wait to pay it forward. This was all meant to be.”
For more information on the Survivors Speak series, call Beth Jacob at (510) 482-1147.