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Into the Skagit

Day 8 · Completed

Bone Marrow Awareness Day — Mount Vernon

Downtown Mount Vernon, on the Skagit River

Mount Vernon: a day to understand the next step

This day on the route

Date
The day
Awareness Day
Walked
7.8 miles

Day 8, September 14: a Bone Marrow Awareness Day in Mount Vernon, with 7.8 miles walked through the city and up the road toward Blanchard and back. She stayed at the Wingate by Wyndham.

Gouache illustration of an empty bench beside a low river wall. Buildings and trees on the opposite bank cast warm reflections across blue water.
Illustration inspired by Downtown Mount Vernon, on the Skagit River.

On September 14 Jeana made her way through Mount Vernon end to end, talking with people about joining the registry, and walked 7.8 miles in all. The day’s reading distinguishes registration from donation.

She was up at half past five, laying her kit out to dry after a wet night on the church lawn. Then she serpentined her way through Mount Vernon, talking with people at the health department, the hospital and City Hall about how to join the registry. At about two the Wingate by Wyndham gave her a room and offered to put her washing through. Later she walked two and a half miles up the road toward Blanchard and back.

Registration and donation are different decisions at different stages. NMDP uses the cheek swab supplied during registration to establish a potential donor’s HLA type. Being listed does not mean that a donation has been arranged. If a person is selected for a patient, the registry follows up with additional information and assessment.

That distinction gives a reader a practical next step: read the official requirements and the donation information before deciding whether to join. Questions about personal health or eligibility belong with the registry. The official guidance explains the screening and consent involved, so readers can consider the decision with that fuller picture.

From the road

Mount Vernon end to end, and the labels that turned out not to matter

It rained in the night while she slept on the lawn at St. Joseph’s, and the tent held. She was up at half past five, laying the whole kit out to dry before she rolled it away — which takes a while when everything you own has to go back into one bag. By the time she was ready, a woman called Leonora, who was staying in the rectory, was awake. She let Jeana use the bathroom and get herself straight for the day, made her coffee, and sat and talked with her.

Jeana has read about the divide between traditional and modern Catholics, and says she was not savvy enough to work out from the marquee at the front of the church which side of it she had landed on. Two Catholic parishes have taken her in on this walk now. Whatever the labels, both of them opened a door to a stranger.

She passed a Washington Federal on the way through the town and paid in money people have handed her for the Foundation along the route. A young man, homeless, was outside as she came out. They talked for a few minutes, and she shared out some of the protein bars other people have been pressing on her. A sweet encounter, she called it.

The rest of the day she spent serpentining across Mount Vernon — her word — talking to anyone who would listen about joining the national registry, and asking after somewhere to sleep. Denny’s fed her in the middle of the day and let her charge her phone. She has left a long list of people behind her to follow up: the health department, the hospital, City Hall. That part falls to the Foundation’s team now, and she is impatient to hear what comes of it.

At about two in the afternoon the Wingate by Wyndham gave her a room for the night, and offered to put a load of her washing through as well.

Her work in the town done, she went back out and took a bite out of the next leg, which is a fourteen-mile one. Two and a half miles up the road, dinner at Mi Mexico — very kind and very generous, she said — and then she turned round and walked the same two and a half miles back. She had a mile and a half of it left when she sent this.

Traditional or modern, whatever labels we assign, both were willing to help me. Both reached out to help a stranger.

Jeana Moore
A dense mass of bright yellow tansy flowers, each one a tight round button, crowding the frame against a grey pavement.A tall Wingate by Wyndham sign on two steel poles, standing against a flat grey sky.Looking up from below at the corner of a tall green sign on two gray poles, its white and light green lettering reading WINGATE BY WYNDHAM beneath part of a white logo, against a flat gray sky.A wide, still river seen from a bridge, with an old steel truss bridge crossing it in the distance under heavy cloud.A painting of white birds with black wingtips flying low over pale brown ground, beneath a blue sky that fades to gold and orange behind bare reddish-brown trees, with a group of long-necked white birds gathered on the ground below.A row of big maples shading a concrete sidewalk that runs beside a four-lane road through town.A hand-painted restaurant sign reading Mi Mexico, with a man in a wide white sombrero and a woman in a pink dress standing beneath stone arches.A narrow channel of dark, still water winding between grass banks, the trees on the far side reflected in it.
Distance walked
7.8 miles
Find your official registryDonate to JBFSee every stop

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

Visit NMDP

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.

Donate through Givebutter

Donate without the embedded form

Sources

Local history and background reading for this stop.

  1. Downtown and waterfront master plan — checked Sep 5, 2026
  2. Matching blood stem cell donors and patients — checked Sep 5, 2026
  3. Blood stem cell donor questions — checked Sep 5, 2026
  4. Join the donor registry — checked Sep 5, 2026
  5. Blanchard State Forest — checked Sep 5, 2026
The flyer: STOP BLOOD CANCER set in tall letters over a dark plum page, a quote, and a QR code beside a text-to-join line for the U.S.One standing face of the table tent: the same headline and quote on the left, a large QR code on the right.

Take it off the screen

Print it. Put it where people already stand.

A coffee counter, a church foyer, a break room, a race table. Every sheet carries the code that opens Jeana’s walk, and a number to text for anyone who would rather not scan — no app, no wifi, nothing to hand back.Every sheet carries the code that opens Jeana’s walk — nothing to install, nothing to hand back. The number to text printed beside it is for joining NMDP, which registers people who live in the U.S., its territories and the freely associated states. If you live anywhere else, find your country’s registry.

Everything else for running a drive

Rather be the one at the table?

Host a registration drive at your school, work or place of worship, raise funds, or lend a skill. Tell us what you have in mind and we will help you plan it.

Ways to volunteerHost a registration drive