People Swag Surfed In Front Of The White House To Raise Cancer Awareness
0
Too epic.
Mowatt told BuzzFeed News he decided to start Million Swag Surf after his friend's niece, Shannon Tavarez, who starred in "The Lion King" on Broadway as Nala, developed leukemia and died at 11-years-old.
"They weren’t able to find a bone marrow donor for her in time and she ended up passing away," he said. "She was of mixed background — half black, half hispanic— so that made it really hard because you have to find someone with a similar ethnic background as you."
"You have a lot of brilliant doctors and scientists working on this problem, but when I saw this, to me, it felt more like a community problem," he said.
Mowatt hopes Million Swag Surf can raise awareness of blood cancer and get more people of color registered as bone marrow donors.
Rick Maiman / ASSOCIATED PRESS