A Father’s Ride-Day 4

The mission of the Matthew and Andrew Akin Foundation is to provide resources for children with HLH and their families going through the bone marrow transplant process, fund HLH research and educate the public on the importance of joining the National Marrow Donor Program.

The goal of the foundation is to help build a housing structure by Cincinnati Children's Hospital so the families can live in a "clean" environment outside the hospital pre and post transplant. During the transplant process the children won't have functioning immune systems for many months so it is imperative that they are protected. Families come from across the world to Cincinnati Children's Hospital because they perform more pediatric bone marrow transplants yearly than any other hospital in the United States. The average stay in Cincinnati for a family going through the transplant process is xx months. We lived in Cincinnati for 17 months and would have welcomed a structure like this to call home.

The foundation will also fund research through the Histiocytosis Association of America. This organization is leading the way in funding worthy scientific research projects in hopes of finding a cure for Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis.

The foundation will also support the National Marrow Donor Program which is the leading organization in the field of marrow and cord blood transplantation, working every day to connect patients, doctors, donors and researchers to the resources they need. We will fund bone marrow drives to get more people on the registry in hopes of finding a life saving match. Our sons underwent four transplants and we are very grateful for this organization because it gave our sons a chance at life.