COUNTYWIDE : New Marrow Drive for Michelle Carew Set

Efforts to find a bone marrow donor for leukemia victim Michelle Carew will continue this weekend.

Carew, daughter of Baseball Hall-of-Famer Rod Carew, has been hospitalized since mid-September and remains in stable condition at Children’s Hospital of Orange County in Orange.

Chanteclair restaurant in Irvine will serve a complimentary lunch to all volunteers who stop by Saturday for blood tests to see if they can be donors for 18-year-old Michelle Carew. Live entertainment will be by the Fabulous Don Duncan and Company, a jazz and rhythm and blues act.

Medical professionals will test volunteers’ blood, said Christine Loock, director of catering for Chanteclair.

Once a person is tested, he or she becomes part of the National Marrow Donor Program that helps people in need of transplants to find a match.

As of Jan. 26, 2 million people were registered through the national program, but medical experts could not find a match for Michelle Carew.

Doing so is difficult, experts said, because of her unusual ancestry, which is Panamanian, West Indian and Eastern European.

Volunteer donors must be between 18 and 60 years old, in good health and should not be excessively overweight.

Because there is a shortage of minority donors in the national registry, federal grant money has been allocated to pay for the testing of minority volunteers. Other volunteers will be asked to pay $22.50 for their tissue typing.

Saturday’s event will be from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the restaurant, 18912 MacArthur Blvd.