The postal service officially entered the Marrow Donor Program by joining The Marrow Foundation's Delivering the Gift of Life, in 1997. The goal of the programme is to register a total of 8,000 new volunteers for the national registry of unrelated marrow donors.

The framework for the partnership is an alliance involving the postal service, the 3M Company, the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) and The Marrow Foundation. This recruitment programme is similar to the postal services employee blood drive.

Grants to the foundation have been $100,000 from 3M and $200,000 from the postal service, which cover the costs of full HLA-A,B,DR tissue-typing for the projected 2,000 Caucasian postal employees. Tissue-typing costs for the 6,000 projected minority volunteers were covered by a grant from the Department of Navy to NMDP.

The postal service support for A,B-typing of Caucasian postal employees resulted in the addition of 6,855 new volunteers to the national registry. Of that total, 4,500 donors are minorities and 2,355 are Caucasians.This recruitment programme is similar to the postal service's employee blood drives. Employees hear a presentation about the programme. Then, volunteers are asked to give a sample of their blood. The blood is tested to determine if the individual is a likely match. If there is a likely match, the individual is named as a potential donor.

Once there is a match, additional tests are conducted. If testing indicates that the individual is a match for someone, he is called and asked to come in for a physical. Surgery is then planned. The entire process takes about one week.

The demand for marrow donations from minorities is very great right now. Out of every 3,000 donors, 75-80 per cent are Caucasian. People remain on the registry until they reach the age of 55.