Our pal Amit srsly needs your help!

Amit, founder of Photojojo and generally awesome person, was diagnosed with acute leukemia about three weeks ago. He began treatment immediately and the preliminary results are good. He’ll continue chemo for a couple more months and then he will need a bone marrow transplant.

And this is the tough part.

Amit is Indian. All minorities are drastically underrepresented in the national bone marrow registry—a caucasian person’s chances of finding a match are 8 in 10, Amit’s (being of South Asian descent) are 1 in 20,000. We have to change those odds.

Amit’s friends are on a mission: get more brown people registered as potential bone marrow donors. Testing is easy. You can register for a free kit at BeTheMatch.org in about 3 minutes and they will send you a swab kit in the mail. You swab your cheeks and mail it back. And by the way, donating bone marrow isn’t nearly as scary or painful as it used to be; in most cases it is a non-surgical process similar to a blood transfusion.

If you are in Philadelphia and want to get swabbed, click on the handsome face above for info about the bone marrow donor drive Web Start Women is organizing at BarCamp Philly. We’d love to see your cheeks on the 22nd!

Already in the registry? Good for you! Please share Amit’s story with your friends and family and encourage them to join the registry too.