BAFEDILE APPEALS FOR A LIFE SAVING DONOR

In September 2008, Bafedile Johanna Molefe (48), a teacher at Chipatabane High School in Bronkhorstspruit, was diagnosed with leukaemia. She underwent an autologous transplant and started to feel better immediately as life went back to normal for Bafedile and her family, at least for a few months.


In September 2009, Bafedile’s life changed forever. She received news from her doctor that she had relapsed. Her only option now, is to have a bone marrow transplant, this time hopefully with an unrelated matched donor as she has no siblings to be tested first.

Bafedile’s family, friends and neighbours have been extremely supportive over the past two years as well as helping with finding her a donor by distributing The Sunflower Fund brochures in the community in desperate effort to try recruit more bone marrow stem cell donors onto the South African Bone Marrow Registry (SABMR).

Bafedile has searched the SABMR for a bone marrow stem cell donor already and has been unsuccessful with finding a match so far.

What this means, is that her life rests on new bone marrow stem cell donors being recruited onto the SABMR. Ethnic origin/heritage is very important when matching donors and patients. The ‘markers’ that are tested, when searching for a match, are genetically inherited and often unique to a particular race. There are currently only 17 % of bone marrow donors, on the SABMR, from African, Indian and mixed ethnic background. The shortage of these groups can and will have a severe impact on patients trying to find a matching unrelated donor.

If many more healthy people, between the ages of 18 and 50, from these ethnic groups joined the registry and became a bone marrow stem cell donor, then we could increase Bafedile’s and other patient’s chances of finding a matching donor that could ultimately save their lives.

This is an urgent call to the people of South Africa to call The Sunflower Fund toll free number 0800 12 10 82, weekdays between 9 and 4pm and register to become a bone marrow donor. Bafedile and many more patients are relying on you.

All that is required from you to become a donor is two test tubes of blood. Two test tubes of blood that could save someone’s life.

The cost of tissue typing all new registered bone marrow stem cell donors is R1000 per person, which is why we organise fundraising events to raise the necessary funds to pay for these tests so that The Sunflower Fund can sponsor the tests for those who can’t afford to pay for them.

Three Round Tabler’s decided to run 350 Miles4Marrow in just eight days trying from Nelspruit to Melrose Arch in JHB in order to assist The Sunflower fund in raising funds to pay for the tissue typing costs and to create the awareness needed about the urgent need for bone marrow stem cell donors and more specifically, more donors from various ethnic groups. Tarryn Corlett, National Fundraiser and PR Coordinator, was one of the crew members for the eight days for 350Miles4Marrow run. During the second last day, they went to visit Bafedile to hear her story and help her by promising to generate as much awareness as possible.

If you would like to see what the runners have been getting up to for the past 8 days, visit the blog: www.350miles4marrow.blogspot.com.

Come on South Africa; share a little, to save a life!

Sandown 150 Donation

Seen here with our Runners with Johan Roos, Chairman of Round Table Sandown 150, who arranged our final function, the Cocktail Party. Thanks to all at Sandown 150 for home hosting us for the evening, our after paety as well as your kind donation of R3500 towards the run.

Visited By RTSA President

We we honoured to host Brian & Michelle from BHP Billiton Energy Coal as well as the Round Table Southern Africa President, Fabrizio Alticheiro to our Cocktail Function, held at Piza e Vino on the Melrose Arch Piazzo.

Thank you for the kind words and your fellowship on the evening, we thank you again for taking the time out your busy schedules to be with us.

Thank you to our Sponsors...

On behalf of everyone at Round Table Southern Africa and the Sunflower Fund, we would like to recognise and thank our main sponsor, BHP Billiton Energy Coal South Africa as well as the sub-sponsors, Dust-A-Side, Nedbank and Stay Easy Hotels for their support and kind donations towards the 350Miles4Marrow run for Blood Cancers... Without the Corporate support we received, this event would not have been possible to start, and again we are most gratefull for your participation and support.

We did it!

It's done - 350Miles4Marrow have been covered!

Here are some interesting Stats for you:

We ran for 56hrs18min...

Average speed of 6min04sec per kilomtre

Longest stage was Day 7 - 97,5km from Balmoral to Pretoria with each runner completing 32.5km each

Stage with most altitude gain - Started at 661m above sea level and climbed to 1555m in a 10km portion of Stage 2 bewteen Barberton and Badplaas.

Highest altitude reached - 1785m above sea level near Warburton in Mpumalanga Province.

Average Altitude for 350Miles4Marrow = 1457m above sea level

Between the two support vehicles - we exceeded 6000km in 8 days.

We consumed in running supplies - 6 Cases of 24 Energade, 800 sachets of Oasis water, 25ltr jerrycan Oasis water , 9 cases of Castle Light, 8x 750ml bottle shooters used at Fines Meetings, two tubes of Voltaren, one 500ml tub arnica massage cream, one 250ml tub of vaseline, two boxed of plasters, 65 energy bars, 31 sachets of Vooma, 14 litres of coke.

On average each runner gained 1.4kg during the run???

Last Stage - Here we go!

There is a huge amount of remourse starting the last stage... we enjoyed the previous night like it was our last together - this because not all of the crew would be apart of the last nights activities! What a week and to think we only had one more to enjoy - it was a bitter sweet pill to swallow, something we were not prepared for. It was an emotional day - lots of memories built up over such a short time, yet today was the end? Difficult to explain how amazing this trip has been and what it has meant to us all...

Either way, the last day - stage 12, Pretoria to Melrose Arch. We started off at a Nedbank branch in the centre of town and were sent off by a group of school children. This was rather refreshing but a pity the road was so busy - or maybe they could have run a few km with us!  It was hot out there with temperatures exceeding 34 Celcius again. We had a very interesting stop at the Voortrekker Monument - and what a piece of history, something that should be there for the generations to come and visit and see a portion of our countries rich and diverse history. After this we made our way through Midrand, past Leeukop Prison and onto Rivonia Road. By now we were getting lots of hoots and waves, as many drivers and passengers got that we were the crazy folk being spoken about on the radio... To make it all more interesting - the last 10km was the roughest of the entire route - we where shattered, tired and mentally finishished, yet knew we needed to pull that little bit more out to get to the end! Eventually, Rivonia became Corlet Drive and we were nearly there. Our Crew remained as cheerful and supportive as ever and we finally saw a big blow up banner signalling the place we were to finish 560km of running between Nelspruit and the Melrose Arch Piazza. Wow - it's all over - the running portion anyway!

Interesting Stat

Just for interest sake, our Crew Bus (supplied by Dust-A-Side) has all ready clocked up 2215km, with one day to go (that's an average of 316km each day). This gives an indication of the amount of back and forth driving that has taken place seconding our runners and making sure that crew get to the correct place at the correct time.

Day Seven

Day Seven, Balmoral (near Witbank) to Menlyn in Pretoria (97.5km)

Riaan kicked the day off with a quick ten kays before attending an emotional hospital visit to a Pretoria Leukeamia Ward, where he, Tarryn and Peter, met with patients who are being treated for blood cancers, and some waiting with no matching bone marrow donor.

Riaan later returned to complete his portion of todays run in the heat of the day, with tempratures exceeding 35 Celcius. This was tough going as is evident from todays photos. Riaan completed his 32,5km in 3hrs5min.

Danie took over from Riaan, and enjoyed a run through Bronkohosrtspuit, that was not planned and ended up running 3km in the worng direction. But without getting too upset, we got back onto the correct road, to complete his 32,5km in a steady 3hrs15min

Guy started running where Danie left off, and to our shock, also realised 7km down a wrong road, before getting back to the correct route. Too many turns and all got a bit confusing for our navigators and GPS' in the crew vehicles. The Sergeant did take note and punishments where distributed during our end of day fines meeting. Guy got through his 32.5km in 2hrs57min

We completed the day running along Atterbury Rd in PTA en route the Pretoria Round Tables Community Centre, where five Tables where waiting to welcome us in. The Pretoria Tables hosted us for a great social and prego roll braai. We really enjoyed the evening, and also received a donation of R4500.19. Thanks to all the tablers from Pretria for your kind hospitality.

With only one day to go, we cannot belive our journey is almost over, and that our legs have takin us this far. We have covered over 500km in 7 days, and have a little over 60km to go on the last day...

Thank you to all who have pledged to support this cause, and with one day to go, ask everyone to spread the word so that we can maximise this support in the final hours.

We have received many phonecalls and sms's on day seven, from friends and family who have heard 350M4M being announced on Highveld 94.7 FM and Radio 702. Thank you for this - we really hope that this may increase the profiel of our run, and that the support increases as a result.

Look forward to our Grand Finish on the Melrose Arch Piazza, and hope to see you all at the Cocktail function starting at 5:30pm on Friday evening. Dress Smart Casual. 

See you at the finish, and keep on following the blog, lots more to come!

Day 6 - Middelburg Mines to Witbank

Today was a yin and yang day. It was so nice to finish earlier in the day and have some time with the families and catch up on some well deserved rest, but then there was the dirt in the air that made us all a darker shade of brown.


On the way to Middelburg Mines we had a quick stop to inspect a Dust-A-Side road. We tried to break it, but did not succeed. All the black at half the price, makes sense to us!

The firtst leg started off at BHP Billitons Middelburg Mines where Stefan Muller saw off the four runners on their way to Witbank. Yes thats right, four runners. Moses Skosana from BHP Billiton joined the run and added his particular tase of speed to the pace as can be seen from the times recorded.


Moses, you are man among men!


The comments heard today included: "I has the worst section because all those trucks and dirt got the dust stuck in my eyes and nose" and "Why do I always get the uphills". Some of us come from Witbank, so today we will mention the roadworks.


The 350 Miles4Marrow runners all managed twelve kilometers each today, Guy starting off with a 1 hour and 5 minutes leg followed by Riaan's 1 hour and 12 minute sprint, leaving Danie to complete the day in 1 hour and 11 minutes.

The end line was the Nedbank in Witbank where a few of the staff joined the team for a group photo to add to the mantle peace. After a short wait we met up with a few people who delivered the runners track suits. Thank you to BHP Billiton.

The 36 kilometer run was well welcome in that the thought of tomorrows run to Pretoria is simply a moral breaker. We did not ask moses to set the pace for that one.


Now off for a quick lunch, team talk and planning session for the next day, before supporting the Witbank 57 project tonight in order to collect a donation to the 350 Miles4Marrow.

Day 6 - Behind the scenes

The street vendors wanted their cut too.

The mans version of spray on tan.

I wonder if this stuff works for potholes too!?

Yah no, enough said hey!

Hey check, a rondle

Meet the crew - Guy Crichton

Guy is the convenor of the 350 Miles4Marrow project and the ARTSA Branding and Communications Officer. He has run one Comrades Marathon and is one of the most passionate Tablers you will meet. Guy has been a Tabler for alomat 10 years and is still only 31, and is also one of the first, if not the first, third generation Tabler in South Afrrica, after his Dad, Rod, Uncle, Don, and Grandfather Stan Anderson.

Comments on Guy....

Danie: Always keeping the project going forward and making sure all stick to the program.
Shayne: Some people just don't understand the real meaning of friendship and love for a fellow Baa.
Tarryn: He has made the difference! Thank you Guy on behalf of myself and The Sunflower Fund.
Frans: "Painfull but exactly knows what he wants to achieved" Great visionery!!
Peter:If it's going to happen Guy will make it happen. Too much energy and a lot of passion.
Riaan: Awesome person and friend which always makes things happen.

Meet the crew - Peter Upfold

Peter is the executive professional photographer (EPP) on the 350 Miles4Marrow team. Peter is a Gentelman who takes life in his stride and has rounded off our team, as only he could!

Commnets on Peter........

Guy: Although Peter was never a Tabler and now too old to become one, my biggest compliment I could give him, would be that if he lived in my town, and if I could, I'd offer him Honorary Membership to Table?
Shayne: There is always something special in calm and collected people.
Danie: Dedicated photography.
Riaan: The ultimate professional
Tarryn: The most unique and special person i have had the privalidge to know.
Frans: Wat 'n fantastiese mens wat hoe standarde aan hom self stel!