Day 4 · Scheduled earlier
Bone Marrow Awareness Day — Everett
Downtown Everett, Washington
Everett’s first Awareness Day
This day on the route
- Planned date
- The day
- Awareness Day
- Planned walking
- No planned route miles
Day 4: planned Awareness Day in Everett, with no planned route miles. A public meeting time and location must be confirmed separately.
Day 4 is the first of ten planned Bone Marrow Awareness Days. The itinerary pauses its walking miles in Everett before continuing toward the Stillaguamish and Skagit valleys.
The itinerary gives Everett the first Awareness Day after three walking days from Seattle. It is a different kind of day in the campaign, with no planned route mileage. Everett marks the end of the opening chapter before the itinerary continues toward the Stillaguamish and Skagit valleys.
Jeana’s family story is the starting point for the educational work. Her granddaughter Jada received marrow from Torsten Huber in Germany as an infant. The foundation’s full account explains how his earlier registration made him available for that search. Their story follows the people behind the medical search and the relationship that grew from it.
For a reader considering registration in the United States, NMDP publishes the age, residence and health requirements and provides the registration process. Its current new-member age range is 18–35. JBF’s role is to explain its mission and refer people to the official organization; the decision to register belongs to the individual.
The walk’s educational purpose extends to readers following from home. The official registry information offers a place to begin learning, with time to read and consider the decision.
From the road
Out of Everett over the sloughs, and a parish that took her in
The schedule had a bone marrow awareness day in Everett on it, but the work was already done — the city council, the police department, the fire department — and she did not want to outstay her welcome. On the way out of town she called at Everett Community College and at Providence Regional Medical Center and came away with contacts at both. Then she walked on towards Kruse Junction, in Marysville.
Just under eight miles, and a beautiful one. The road out of Everett crosses water again and again — Union Slough, Steamboat Slough, Ebey Slough — and every bridge had a walkway on it. She notes that she was on the right-hand side of the road for once. She usually walks facing the traffic.
Partway along she realised she was walking on Tulalip tribal land, and rang the Tribes. They gave her contact details so the Foundation can write to them about joining the registry, and about whether they would like to host a stem cell donor event.
Marysville had no rooms in it — a concert at one of the casinos had taken them all — and three hotels turned her down before she passed St. Mary’s Catholic Church. The woman at the desk sent her to Father Peter, who thought about it carefully and offered her the crying room at the back of the sanctuary. Then he did better than that, and arranged a room at the Quality Inn instead; a woman named Deb drove her over, and arranged to bring her back to the route in the morning.
They’re a beautiful group of human beings that have improved my life by knowing them.
- Distance walked
- 7.7 miles
Choose where you live
Continue to the official registry that serves you. It decides eligibility, handles registration and contacts you if you may match a patient.
United States — NMDP
NMDP accepts new registry members who are 18 to 35, live in the US, its territories or freely associated states, can meet NMDP’s health guidelines, and are not already registered through another US organization. Joining happens at home: you answer a few questions on NMDP’s site, they mail you a free cheek-swab kit, and you swab and send it back. Once you are a member you stay listed until you are 61 unless you ask to be removed — 61 is when NMDP takes you off, not an age at which you can join. NMDP makes the final eligibility decision.
Check the listed age range
NMDP — Join the registry · checked Sep 1, 2026
Prefer to text? Send JADA to 61474 and NMDP will take it from there.
Browse all official registry options
Eligibility rules can change. Confirm the current requirements with the official registry before joining.
Give to the Jada Bascom Foundation
Choose a symbolic amount or enter your own in Givebutter. Your donation supports JBF’s work wherever it is needed most.
Sponsoring a mile, a day or a stop is a way of describing a gift to the Jada Bascom Foundation. It does not purchase anything on the route.
$100.00 is a suggested amount. Confirm or change it in Givebutter.
Sources
Local history and background reading for this stop.
- Jada, Torsten and the reason for the walk — checked Sep 5, 2026
- Join the donor registry — checked Sep 5, 2026
