As the race for Pantovčak nears the end, Ivo Josipović, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) presidential candidate, found the time to visit the new premises of the Ana Rukavina Foundation and even donate 100,000 kuna, and thus he joined the pre-Christmas humanitarian action that the Foundation held for the fourth year in a row in honor of the late Vjesnik journalist Ana Rukavina.
“We are grateful to Mr. Ivo Josipović for showing his incredible heart and for deciding to join Ana Rukavina’s great family during this holiday season. With his donation, Mr. Josipović has enabled the tissue typing of hundreds of blood samples which have been collected so far during the Foundation’s actions. Until today, out of 33,000 collected samples, only about 13,000 have been tissue typed because of the high cost of the tissue typing process,” said Marija Rukavina, director of the Foundation.
No price is too high when human lives are in question. This year, owing to the Ana Rukavina Foundation, two lives have been saved by blood samples that have come from the Croatian national Registry, and two people have been given a new hope for life.
The Ana Rukavina Foundation has marked the fourth year of its operation, as well as the third anniversary of Ana’s death. In the meantime, her family, friends and colleagues continue her mission – to raise funds for tissue typing blood samples in order to expand the national Registry of potential bone marrow donors. Thanks to the donations that are still pouring in, in 2010 the Ana Rukavina Foundation will continue with its actions and in this way help those that need it the most.