Students Rally to Save Amit Gupta

Amazing young people may seem invincible, but unfortunately that's not always the case. Amit Gupta (pictured right), the young South Asian founder of the photography site Photojojo and cofounder of Jelly, was diagnosed with leukemia 2 weeks ago.

"I was terrified," Amit wrote on his Tumblr, "I Googled acute leukemia as I lay in my hospital bed, learning that if it hadn’t been caught, I’d have died within weeks."

This guy has accomplished so much, but his life is at risk of already ending. Amit needs a blood transfusion from a bone marrow donor, but there's a catch—he needs it from someone who is also of South Asian descent. Right now the chance of that is 1 in 20,000.

Amit's story has inspired people everywhere to respond. His story is picking up steam on Twitter (#brownbones), Facebook, and in the traditional media.

There is something young people can do about this. Take, for instance, DoSomething.org We Heart Action scholarship winner Vineet Singal (pictured left). He's Executive Director of 100KCheeks, a project at Stanford University that has registered over 75.000 people on the national bone marrow donor registry. His organization is hosting a kick-off event for DoSomething.org's Give a Spit campaign to help Amit and others find a bone marrow donor match that will save their lives.

"Our only hope is to help find that one perfect match," Vineet told DoSomething.org, "That gift of hope, for Amit and hundreds of patients suffering from leukemia around the world."

So What Can You Do?

• Lead a bone marrow drive with DoSomething.org or find one near you. Every person you add to the bone marrow registry could help save someone's life.
• Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and other networks. We know you're popular—you've got friends all across the nation that can help!
• Read other inspiring stories from the book The Dragonfly Effect