A Clifton Heights college football player, Ayden Garnes, is donating bone marrow to help a woman he’s never met, writes Eddie Kadhim for Fox 29.

Garnes, 19, an All-State athlete from Monsignor Bonner Prendergast High School, is a defensive back for Duquesne University.

He signed up at a team event to be a donor for the Be the Match Registry.

The Registry is operated by the National Marrow Donor Program®.  It is a nonprofit organization that helps patients get life-saving transplants while supporting research, innovative technologies, patient support, and donor education.

Six months after Garnes signed up as a donor, he was matched with a woman struggling with cancer.

“I had a grandmother who had cancer,” Garnes said. “What if she needed something that this woman needs?”

He’s hoping others read his story and also become donors to save a person’s life.

His parents, already proud of Garnes’ academic and football success, now can add his latest effort to the list.

“To see him want to give the gift of life to someone he barely, that he doesn’t even know, as a parent, it’s indescribable for me,” said his father, Kevin Garnes.

Read more about Ayden Garnes and his decision to be a bone marrow donor at Fox 29.