NJN Public Television is proud to offer an original award-winning documentary that examines the issue of bone marrow donations in The Gift of Life.  The documentary follows a donor into the operating room and on a cross-country journey that results in a very special reunion between two men who share a common bond that begins at the DNA level. 

Each day 3,000 people with life-threatening blood disorders -- people who desperately need bone marrow transplants -- search an international registry for potential donors. They've failed to find a match among family members and will die without a transplant. We've often heard their heart-wrenching eleventh hour appeals for help. But what does it take to give the gift of life to a total stranger?  

In 1999, NJN Health & Medical Correspondent Sara Lee Kessler produced a two-part news series entitled Bone Marrow: The Donor's Viewpoint. Following the airing of the segments, the National Marrow Donor Program (NDMP) reported receiving over 1,000 phone calls from people requesting information about how they could become potential donors. The series was nominated for three New York Emmys, and Kessler was recognized by the New Jersey Senate for her efforts in raising awareness about bone marrow donation. 

Kessler's bone marrow reports were the genesis for The Gift of Life, which chronicles more than a dozen tales of courage, altruism and survival. Donor and recipient stories take Kessler and her NJN production team cross-country from New York to Los Angeles, from Maryland to Seattle, and from New Jersey to Chicago and Minneapolis. Since its first broadcast in November, 2002,The Gift of Life has been honored with three major awards:

• Emmy Award For outstanding health/science program
• Clarion Award for outstanding documentary Program from Women in Communications
• Best of the Best Award from the New Jersey Broadcasters Association.
• 2003 NETA Award
  Program Production, Documentary Science and Nature

Highlights include interviews with:

·         Anissa Ayala, the young woman whose parents made history and headlines a decade ago when they conceived another baby to save Anissa's life.  The family of Allison Atlas, whose struggle against leukemia was publicized by actor Dustin Hoffman, added 60,000 potential donors in the National Bone Marrow Registry.

·         A heroic New York City firefighter, who described his bone marrow donation  "as just another rescue mission."   He gave a six-year-old Nevada girl a second chance at life.

·         A seven-year-old Minnesota boy, whose leukemia was cured by a donor.

·         A retired Seattle police detective who's facing death because his unique Cherokee/African-American heritage has made it impossible to find a donor.

·         The reunion of a three-year-old girl and her donor at City of Hope Cancer Center in Los Angeles.

 The Gift of Life visits the set of the Young and the Restless, a popular daytime television drama, whose writers added a bone marrow story line after two tragedies struck home. The documentary also features Dr. John A Hansen, who performed the first unrelated transplant that showed successful engraftment.  He shares his insights with Kessler at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle. 

The Gift of Life is being offered by PBS Plus and is available to public television stations across the country.