Every 45 minutes, a person in Germany falls ill with leukaemia. For many of these persons, the transfusion of stem cells is the only possible way of curing the disease.

For this reason, the Rotary Club Freudenstadt appealed to the local population to donate stem cells, an action in which J. Schmalz GmbH in Glatten also participated.

 
At Schmalz, 42 persons volunteered to donate stem cells. On Wednesday, 11 May 2005, a small blood sample was taken from each of these persons to permit the necessary typing, in other words to determine the basic characteristics of their tissues. On the basis of these data, the Schmalz employees will be registered in the German bone-marrow donor database which, with more than 1.1 million potential donors, is the largest in the world. If the characteristics of a donor match those of a leukaemia patient, bone marrow is extracted from the donor to treat this patient. However, since such a match is very rare, every single potential donor is important. 80% of all leukaemia patients can be cured with the aid of a bone-marrow donation.

The stem-cell donation action was carried out on the premises of Schmalz by Dr. Claas Wolff (general practitioner in Loßburg) and his son. The costs for typing, 50.00 € per blood sample, were paid by Schmalz and the Rotary Club Freudenstadt, since they are not covered by the donors' normal medical insurance.