Asian American Donor Program
Jan 26 - On the first day at the Asian American Donor Program, Fion, our supervisor, showed us around the office and we learned a little bit about what the program is about. She showed us fliers and information about the program, telling us about the statistics and why they target minority groups. We then worked on creating kits that included cotton swabs for donors.
Jan 28 - We were given a task on the computers to advertise for AADP’s upcoming event, the Laugh for Lives comedy show. Fion was not present that day, so we were supervised by Arjun Panda. I posted about the event on social media and meet up websites, and then worked on an application for sponsorship via Verizon for the event with Michelle.
Feb 2 - Fion gave us a filing job, where we went through unorganized folders of old patients and located their names and ethnicities and labelled the folder with that information appropriately. We then placed the folders in a filing cabinet in alphabetical order.
Feb 11 - We continued our filing job from the last time, and also took old folders, labelled 2009 and prior, out of the cabinet and sorted the papers that were printed on just one side out so that the paper with nothing on one side could reused, the papers that had things on both sides were recycled, and the folders were put away for future reuse.
Feb 18 - We arrived and created more kits that contained swabs for donors to sign up with.
Feb 23 - We were assigned to create posters and advertisements for their office showing patients in need of donors. We were given a board and 4 pieces of paper that we needed to cut, fit, and tape onto the board in a neat fashion. After that was done, we were instructed to cut up cards to prepare new donors. I also was able to sign up as a donor due to me being 18.
Mar 2 - We created home kits, which contained the previous smaller kits, as well as instructions and advertisement for people to swab themselves and sign up to be a donor on their own. After making 50 of those, we were instructed to cut up some cards for signed up donors instructing them on how to follow up.
Mar 9 - The Laugh for Lives event is coming up soon, so the last ditch effort for advertising is going on now, so we were instructed to create 4 large posters out of a printed out ad similar to what we did two weeks ago, but this time they were much bigger so they took more time. We did get all 4 posters done in the two hours we were there.
Mar 16 - We continued to create posters for the Laugh for Lives event as the other employees worked on advertisements and technical things on their computers.
Mar 23 - The Laugh for Lives event was over, so as the other employees spent their time deliberating among each other, we spent the time making test kits in the other room.
April 1 - We continued making test kits, and an hour in Carol gave us a lot of files and receipts to organize in folders marked by the businesses the receipt was from and sorted by date. It was definitely interesting to see how the company spent their budget, as most of it was actually on food.
April 15 - I first was instructed to cut out cards of information for donors, and after that I was instructed to contact donors who submitted incomplete forms. Some were missing contact information for them or their secondary contact person, their address, or health status. When missing one piece of that vital information, they cannot be added to the registry as it would be a waste of time to submit them, have them test as a match, and not be able to find them or they end up being ineligible to donate anyways. I was to call those who had left their phone numbers and email if not. Most of them did not pick up or reply right away, but some of this actually replied and it was a successful endeavor according to Ruby, who said they normally have bad luck getting a hold of donors.
The Asian American Donor Program is an office that works to spread awareness and increase the amount of bone marrow donorship among minority community. At the moment, over 60% of donations are from Caucasians, but because matches are mainly based on ethnicity, many leukemia patients among minority ethnic groups suffer in finding a match, and may never find a proper match. What I do for my internship currently is helping out in the office, creating packets, and miscellaneous office work. The main skill used was organization and precision, as the main tasks that were assigned were things like cutting papers, putting together posters, and creating kits. In order to do those tasks in a timely manner, things had to be organized in the right way to increase efficiency and of course to make the posters and papers look nice and not tacky, they had to be made with precision. Although I only did this once, I also needed to use communication skills to sound professional when asking donors for missing information from their forms. When I sent emails, they were checked by Ruby, but when talking on the phone I had to wing it on my own. There was never necessarily a daily duty, as every day we might have something different. A common task was to create kits, but when the Laugh for Lives fundraising event was coming up, creating posters became a more frequent task.
The biggest thing I learned right from the beginning of the internship was how bone marrow donation worked. Before, I always had the preconception that it was scary or required immense surgery, but in fact it only requires a quick filtration of your blood through a tube to remove the stem cells. It made the process very mild to me and opened my eyes to how simple it was. Because of this, I think everyone who is eligible should become a donor because of how easy it is and how necessary it may be. So many people suffer from diseases that require a bone marrow transplant and so many cannot find donors. It saddened me when I was organizing files and passed through so many files on children and teenagers around my age even who couldn’t find a donor and passed away. I really hope that I can pass on this knowledge to whoever I can.
One obstacle, as I mentioned before, was becoming comfortable with calling strangers over the phone. Throughout my life, I have always felt as though I cannot speak properly on the phone, and I can never hear when people talk leading to me asking them over and over again what they said creating awkwardness. Because of these past experiences and my fear, I was very hesitant to actually take on this task of calling people. However, mainly because it was a task that they asked me to do and I was not really in the position to deny it, I took it on. When I first started I still felt awkward and was afraid that things would go wrong, but as I spoke it ended up flowing and working out rather well. So I learned that some things that I feared growing up may have changed now that I’m older.
The same lesson actually applies to when I first started. When I walked into the office, I was rather intimidated by the business environment and desk space and what not, but when I actually got to know the people there, they were anything but intimidating. One of them talked casually about the future and his experiences in college, talking about about how to survive and make the best out of it, and another chatted to me about anime on the downtime. I learned that a business atmosphere isn’t dependent on the work, but the people within it. If everyone is chill and down to earth, then everyone will get along and things won’t be dramatic or uptight, even in stressful situations.
Jan 28 - We were given a task on the computers to advertise for AADP’s upcoming event, the Laugh for Lives comedy show. Fion was not present that day, so we were supervised by Arjun Panda. I posted about the event on social media and meet up websites, and then worked on an application for sponsorship via Verizon for the event with Michelle.
Feb 2 - Fion gave us a filing job, where we went through unorganized folders of old patients and located their names and ethnicities and labelled the folder with that information appropriately. We then placed the folders in a filing cabinet in alphabetical order.
Feb 11 - We continued our filing job from the last time, and also took old folders, labelled 2009 and prior, out of the cabinet and sorted the papers that were printed on just one side out so that the paper with nothing on one side could reused, the papers that had things on both sides were recycled, and the folders were put away for future reuse.
Feb 18 - We arrived and created more kits that contained swabs for donors to sign up with.
Feb 23 - We were assigned to create posters and advertisements for their office showing patients in need of donors. We were given a board and 4 pieces of paper that we needed to cut, fit, and tape onto the board in a neat fashion. After that was done, we were instructed to cut up cards to prepare new donors. I also was able to sign up as a donor due to me being 18.
Mar 2 - We created home kits, which contained the previous smaller kits, as well as instructions and advertisement for people to swab themselves and sign up to be a donor on their own. After making 50 of those, we were instructed to cut up some cards for signed up donors instructing them on how to follow up.
Mar 9 - The Laugh for Lives event is coming up soon, so the last ditch effort for advertising is going on now, so we were instructed to create 4 large posters out of a printed out ad similar to what we did two weeks ago, but this time they were much bigger so they took more time. We did get all 4 posters done in the two hours we were there.
Mar 16 - We continued to create posters for the Laugh for Lives event as the other employees worked on advertisements and technical things on their computers.
Mar 23 - The Laugh for Lives event was over, so as the other employees spent their time deliberating among each other, we spent the time making test kits in the other room.
April 1 - We continued making test kits, and an hour in Carol gave us a lot of files and receipts to organize in folders marked by the businesses the receipt was from and sorted by date. It was definitely interesting to see how the company spent their budget, as most of it was actually on food.
April 15 - I first was instructed to cut out cards of information for donors, and after that I was instructed to contact donors who submitted incomplete forms. Some were missing contact information for them or their secondary contact person, their address, or health status. When missing one piece of that vital information, they cannot be added to the registry as it would be a waste of time to submit them, have them test as a match, and not be able to find them or they end up being ineligible to donate anyways. I was to call those who had left their phone numbers and email if not. Most of them did not pick up or reply right away, but some of this actually replied and it was a successful endeavor according to Ruby, who said they normally have bad luck getting a hold of donors.
The Asian American Donor Program is an office that works to spread awareness and increase the amount of bone marrow donorship among minority community. At the moment, over 60% of donations are from Caucasians, but because matches are mainly based on ethnicity, many leukemia patients among minority ethnic groups suffer in finding a match, and may never find a proper match. What I do for my internship currently is helping out in the office, creating packets, and miscellaneous office work. The main skill used was organization and precision, as the main tasks that were assigned were things like cutting papers, putting together posters, and creating kits. In order to do those tasks in a timely manner, things had to be organized in the right way to increase efficiency and of course to make the posters and papers look nice and not tacky, they had to be made with precision. Although I only did this once, I also needed to use communication skills to sound professional when asking donors for missing information from their forms. When I sent emails, they were checked by Ruby, but when talking on the phone I had to wing it on my own. There was never necessarily a daily duty, as every day we might have something different. A common task was to create kits, but when the Laugh for Lives fundraising event was coming up, creating posters became a more frequent task.
The biggest thing I learned right from the beginning of the internship was how bone marrow donation worked. Before, I always had the preconception that it was scary or required immense surgery, but in fact it only requires a quick filtration of your blood through a tube to remove the stem cells. It made the process very mild to me and opened my eyes to how simple it was. Because of this, I think everyone who is eligible should become a donor because of how easy it is and how necessary it may be. So many people suffer from diseases that require a bone marrow transplant and so many cannot find donors. It saddened me when I was organizing files and passed through so many files on children and teenagers around my age even who couldn’t find a donor and passed away. I really hope that I can pass on this knowledge to whoever I can.
One obstacle, as I mentioned before, was becoming comfortable with calling strangers over the phone. Throughout my life, I have always felt as though I cannot speak properly on the phone, and I can never hear when people talk leading to me asking them over and over again what they said creating awkwardness. Because of these past experiences and my fear, I was very hesitant to actually take on this task of calling people. However, mainly because it was a task that they asked me to do and I was not really in the position to deny it, I took it on. When I first started I still felt awkward and was afraid that things would go wrong, but as I spoke it ended up flowing and working out rather well. So I learned that some things that I feared growing up may have changed now that I’m older.
The same lesson actually applies to when I first started. When I walked into the office, I was rather intimidated by the business environment and desk space and what not, but when I actually got to know the people there, they were anything but intimidating. One of them talked casually about the future and his experiences in college, talking about about how to survive and make the best out of it, and another chatted to me about anime on the downtime. I learned that a business atmosphere isn’t dependent on the work, but the people within it. If everyone is chill and down to earth, then everyone will get along and things won’t be dramatic or uptight, even in stressful situations.