About a half-hour’s drive from where Sarah Watkin was hooked to an IV at the Hospital for Sick Children, a movement was underway at Markham’s Milliken Mills High School to help find the 5-year-old the perfect match.

“Incredible ... it’s just incredible,” said father Mark Watkin, a geography teacher at the high school where a student-led stem cell and bone marrow donation drive on Tuesday saw nearly 250 people get cheek swabs and register as potential donors.

It was about five months ago when the Watkin family — Mark and wife Leah, Sarah and 1-year-old Elizabeth — were vacationing in Mexico when Sarah came down with strep throat symptoms. A few weeks and a series of medical appointments later, the family’s world was thrown into a tailspin.

Sarah was diagnosed last October with acute myeloid leukemia, a fast-progressing type of cancer that starts in the bone marrow and affects blood cells. The cure rate in children is just below 50 per cent, according to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada.

“I don’t think there are words to describe how you feel when you are told your (5-year-old) has leukemia,” said Leah. “Her life just flashed before my eyes.”

Sarah began chemotherapy last October. But after two rounds of treatment, the disease relapsed and her parents decided to opt for a stem cell transplant.

And so Sarah, whose room at SickKids has since been decorated with Justin Bieber posters, joined the Canadian Blood Services’ OneMatch Stem Cell and Marrow Network and was added to the list of more than 900 Canadians waiting for a match.

But the search proved unsuccessful and Sarah was forced to return to two more aggressive chemotherapy rounds in a bid to rid her body of the cancer.

Sarah’s leukemia went into remission last month. But, as she’s still reliant on blood and platelet transfusions and potentially in need of a bone-marrow transplant down the road, her parents turned to the community to raise awareness and encourage others to sign up as donors.

“We’re being proactive,” said Leah. “We hope we never need it ... but we want people out there to donate bone marrow and blood. And not just for Sarah. We want to fight for other families as well.”

In addition to organizing several blood donor clinics, the family was the subject of Tuesday’s OneMatch donor drive at Milliken Mills High School.

The daylong drive, organized by the school’s Grade 11 leadership class, prompted current and past students and others from the community to submit to cheek swabs and add their names to the donor registry. OneMatch staff members were also on hand to explain the process and potential commitment required.

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“I wanted to help an old teacher out,” said Chris Okapiec, 22, a Milliken Mills graduate who returned to the school to have his cheek swabbed Tuesday after he learned on Facebook that Mark Watkin, his Grade 9 geography teacher, needed help.

Hajani Nithiyanantharajah, 16, was too young to provide a cheek swab on Tuesday (OneMatch registrants must be between the ages of 17 and 50), but said she hoped to become a donor as soon as she’s old enough. Instead, she spent the day Tuesday manning a swab station and helping others fill out their registration forms.