MANGALURU: Students, friends, well-wishers and coworkers of Prashanth, a physical trainer at Canara CBSE school, gathered for ‘Swab for Prashanth’ camp to find a stem cell donor match on Saturday.
The institute has been trying to help their teacher. Many made monetary donations, while 714 students from Canara College and Canara Engineering College swabbed for Prashanth, who has blood cancer.
The swabs will be sent to a laboratory in Germany to find a match, said head of donor recruitment at Stem Cell Registry of India Shalini Gambir, which is associating with the school in the drive.Several other individuals and organisations tried to consolidate support to touch the 2,000 mark in their own capacity on Saturday, despite unfavourable weather conditions.
“I have come down from Bengaluru specifically to attend this camp,” said Gold medal winning athlete in National Games Varsha Rohit, who reached out to more than one lakh people, athletes, and other students of Prashanth on social media to join the camp.
“We (athletes coached by Prashanth) were taken aback two weeks ago when we heard about it,” said Varsha, who rememberd Prashanth as an extremely healthy, energetic and positive mentor, hoping this drive will bring him back on track. “We are hoping he gets a match real soon. We’ve swabbed,” added rotarian Latha, who had visited the centre with her friend. Honorary Secretary of Canara High School Association Ranganath Bhat said the Rotary Club District chapter which has more than 80 clubs, will take up its first stem cell donation drive in December.