Farmer Wants a Wife Australia’s Samantha Armytage has appealed to her followers to assist a 14-year-old girl with blood cancer who requires a stem cell donation.

The Farmer Wants a Wife co-host took to Instagram on November 21 to seek potential bone marrow donors for a young family friend who has Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML).

“ATTENTION! All you good people of the Illawarra (and beyond!) Maggie Banyard is a family friend of ours. She’s a beautiful 14-year-old girl – diagnosed with a bloody horrible form of leukaemia,” she wrote.

Samantha continued: “I know you’ve all got lots on at the moment, but please help spread the word. The family is looking for a suitable stem cell donor to help save Maggie’s life.”

On the Match for Maggie website, the Banyard family noted they were faced with a “race against time looking for a near ‘perfect match’ from anywhere in the world through the international stem cell registry”.

“It could be anyone – regardless of gender, blood type etc. It could be you,” the family wrote.

“To give Maggie – and all the other blood cancer patients in desperate need – the best chance of finding their match, we urgently need to get thousands more people on that database.”

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What Can You Do To Help?

According to Match for Maggie, “70 per cent of patients need to find an unrelated donor through the Donor Registry”.

Australian and New Zealand residents aged can book in to donate blood.

If you are aged between 18 to 35, you will be able to “join the Bone Marrow Donor Registry” at that appointment or register on the Strength to Give website.

If you’re based in the UK or US, you can similarly register for a free swab test, which takes just one minute to complete.

Anybody aged 16-30 in those regions can register through Anthony Nolan. Anybody aged 30-55 can register through DKMS. US residents can also register on Be The Match.

The Match for Maggie website also has additional instructions for other countries and other ways to help, including a social media campaign.

You can listen to episode 232 of the So Dramatic! podcast with Megan Pustetto below.