McLaughlin, who has battled lymphatic cancer for over a year, was able to attend the marrow drive for about an hour, having been admitted to Boston Children’s Hospital Friday. A Cat-scan performed Friday showed a relapse - cancer growing back in his chest - and doctors would only release him for a couple of hours to attend the event.

After a year of chemotherapy, McLaughlin’s cancer has returned for the second time in just over two months. The teen’s doctors say his best shot lies with radical chemotherapy and radiation treatments that would wipe out his immune system, making a bone marrow transplant necessary to replace lost white blood cells. In the meantime, doctors are trying to control his cancer with a harsh form of chemotherapy requiring a week of isolation in the hospital as his immune system rebuilds.

McLaughlin may not be able to wait the six weeks needed to see if the extremely long shot of finding a donor through the Danvers marrow drive pans out.

Doctors now hope to knock down his cancer to the point where he can go to a New York hospital specializing in transplants with less-than-perfect marrow donor matches or another in Milwaukee that specializes in using a parent’s marrow.

"The risks are very much higher, " said Mary McLaughlin, Sean’s mother. " We are just beside ourselves. "

But the great outpouring of support the family experienced at the drive helped temper the frantic worry they are experiencing.

When the eighth grader walked into the Dunn Middle School for the first time since September, he was greeted by the applause of volunteers and people waiting to be tested as potential donors, his teachers and friends and others.

"It was a big reception, all the kids were clapping, " said his mother. " It was really great for him to see all those people there for him and to be with his friends. He didn’t want to leave. "

"We were very, very heartened by that, " she added.

Danvers came out in force during the drive in McLaughlin’s name, bringing in nearly 1,000 prospective donors, 850 of whom met criteria to qualify for a blood screening to make sure they meet all the criteria necessary to be entered into the national bone marrow donor registry. Saturday’s drive was the biggest in New England this year, said Beth Charney, Donor Center Coordinator for the National Bone Marrow Donor Program.

Organizers pulled the event together with just over two weeks of planning. After Sean’s first relapse, shortly after Thanksgiving, his family contacted the Kristin Amico Sesselman Leukemia Foundation for help with organizing a bone marrow drive they hoped would find a donor for their son.

A local non-profit charity dedicated to organizing donor drives and raising money for cancer research, the foundation is named after Kristin Sesselman, a Danvers woman who succumbed to leukemia at 29 in July 2000. Her family and friends in the foundation took the lead organizing McLaughlin’s drive and funneling donations. Although they deserve a large part of the credit for the Danvers drive’s success, Sesselman’s family says it’s really the community that deserves praise.

"I was totally overwhelmed. It was two years ago this month we were looking for our donor, " said Kathy Porcaro, Kristin Sesselman’s mother. " To see all those people show up from a mother’s perspective was just totally overwhelming. I think (Sean’s mother) must feel the same way. "

Heartened by turnout

The first thing Porcaro saw when she showed up at Dunn Middle School on the morning of Dec. 15 was three fire engines lined up in the parking lot. Around 9 a.m., before the drive had even opened up officially, local firefighters piled into the building to register as potential marrow donors with the national registry.

Throughout the marrow drive, Porcaro saw many examples of how the community turned out for McLaughlin. About 20 middle school teachers helped run the drive and many others showed up with their families to sign up as marrow donors. Donations to help pay the cost of the drive came in all sizes, from children who wanted to donate 50 cents to local companies that handed over checks for $1,000. Porcaro met people who have lost family members to the disease and wanted to help out, people close to the McLaughlins and others who only knew them from media reports.

The very last person Porcaro met at the drive was 14-year-old Kristin Rich, another Dunn student who lost a 4-year-old brother to leukemia. She wanted to volunteer as a student representative to the Kristin Fund.

About 130 volunteers came from all quarters, from local churches and schools to the average resident, and helped to take in donations, serve refreshments and shuffle potential donors through the registration process. Newspapers, radio and television media spread news of the drive, bringing in potential donors from as far away as Kennebunkport.

"The entire day was an incredible emotional high for anybody that was working there that day, " said Kathe Highland, a Dunn School special needs teacher.

The fund took in about $45,000 on Saturday alone, and organizers expect more donations from various promised sources. Coupled with partial and full reimbursements from some insurance carriers, donations will just about pay for the marrow drive, Porcaro said. The first such endeavor for the fund, the marrow drive’s success encouraged organizers to continue with similar events.

"To think all the people and all the stuff that had to happen for that drive, that’s a community, " Porcaro said. " There was an energy in that room different from anything I’ve ever seen. "

For the McLaughlins, the situation has gotten much tougher in the past week. If a better donor match doesn’t turn up soon, the radical treatment Sean must undergo means months of isolation in a New York or Milwaukee hospital coupled with months of follow-up visits in whatever city he ends up. If a better match isn’t found soon, Sean and his mother will have to live far from home, while Joseph McLaughlin works at home and visits Sean whenever he can.

To find out how you can help with a blood platelet drive the Kristin Fund is organizing for the month of January or any of their other efforts, call 978-777-3424. To find out how to become a bone marrow donor, call the Dana Farber collection center at 617-632-2561.