What's touching, and in many ways remarkable, is that one major source of support has come from a Danvers family who recently lost a loved one to leukemia. A foundation started by the family of Kristin Amico Sesselman, who was 29 and newly married when she died 17 months ago, has organized a bone marrow drive for Sean for Dec. 15.

First diagnosed with lymphoblastic lymphoma 16 months ago, Sean went into remission with chemotherapy. In September, he was well enough to participate in the Jimmy Fund Walk.

His good health didn't last, however. A week after the walk the cancer returned.

Now Sean needs a bone marrow transplant so he can fight off the cancer, and efforts to find a donor have failed so far.

Life with cancer

These days Sean still feels pretty good, but he's confined to his home most of the time because of the threat of infection.

He can still enjoy an occasional outing to the mall early in the morning before anyone else gets there.

"Sometimes we go to a 10 o'clock movie," said his mother, Mary McLaughlin. "There were just five people in the theater when we went to see Harry Potter."

Sean doesn't complain about the stepped-up chemotherapy he's taking now, but he does miss going to school with his buddies.

"My friends still come by, but I can't go out and skateboard with them," he said.

Sean's school, the Dunn Middle School in Danvers, will host the bone marrow drive Saturday, Dec. 15, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the cafeteria. Organizers hope to test 1,000 people to see if they can find a match for Sean or some other young person battling lymphoma or leukemia.

The kids at the school and children around Danvers are also raising money to pay for the screening tests, which cost $75 each. A thousand tests will cost $75,000.

"We hope people will donate blood, and if they can't, we would gladly accept contributions to help defray the cost," Dunn Middle School Principal Michael Cali said. "I think the community is really going to come together and support this. My guess is they'll come up with quite a bit of that money."

The school agreed to hold the marrow drive Monday. Wednesday night the first fund-raiser was held, a 50/50 raffle conducted at the sixth-graders' holiday concert. They raised $750, enough to pay for 10 tests. Cali said the school plans to hold raffles at the seventh- and eighth-grade holiday concerts, and that students plan to organize another big event, possibly a dance.

"This is a tough situation for students looking for ways to help out because they can't donate blood," Cali said. You have to be 18 years old to be a marrow donor.

Kristin Sesselman's Fund

The donor drive wouldn't be possible if it hadn't been for the efforts of Sesselman's family. Sesselman, who grew up in Danvers, also attended Dunn Middle School, where her mother, Kathy Amico Porcaro, was a teacher.

Sean's mother was picking up medicine at the CVS in Danvers when she noticed a brochure about the Kristin Amico Sesselman Leukemia Foundation, which friends and family members set up in January to raise money for research. One of the foundation's goals is to stage bone marrow donor drives.

Mary McLaughlin started to talk to the pharmacist, Alan Maravelias, who it turns out was Sesselman's uncle.

She was at an especially low point. Because Sean has no brothers or sisters, the McLaughlins had to turn to the National Marrow Donor Program. They were lucky, they thought. Two exact matches turned up.

The McLaughlins went into Children's Hospital the week after Thanksgiving, believing Sean would be getting a marrow transplant. Instead, they learned one donor was not well enough to give, and the other had decided not to do it.

"This came as a big shock. We found there wasn't a donor so we were devastated," she said.

Maravelias urged her to e-mail the foundation.

"I e-mailed them on Saturday, and they called me on Monday and said they'd be glad to arrange a bone marrow drive," McLaughlin said. "This will be the first one they've done. They met, organized neighbors and the church and the schools. They're the ones who are carrying the ball."

The McLaughlins are hopeful, because they're most likely to find a match from someone with an English and/or Irish ethnic background, a fairly common profile in the Boston area.

"The thing I think is fascinating," said Porcaro, "is that I taught at the middle school where Sean goes to school, and Kristin went to school there, too. And Sean went to cancer camp where Kristin once worked."

Sesselman's family understands how important it is to expand the donor base because of their own experience.

"Kristin was a twin, but her twin brother was not a match," Porcaro explained. "We went to the national bank so we know how important it is. There was only one person in the entire country that matched her."

Sesselman received a transplant, but the leukemia "was rampant," said her mother. There wasn't time for the transplant to save her.

Now Porcaro and a core of about 15 volunteers welcome an opportunity to help another young person.

"This has been very fast for us," Porcaro said. "In January, we sat down and said, 'OK, what do we need to do? What would Kristin want?'" Since then the foundation has organized, raised some money, and held some blood drives.

Now Sesselman's foundation will organize the marrow donor drive, working with the Dana Farber Institute, which will conduct the screening.

Sesselman was a remarkable young woman, her mother said. She was a special education teacher, a coach, an athlete, and still found time for volunteer work.

"She lived her life to the fullest every single day," she said. After she became ill, she used to tell her mother, "There's a reason for this." Helping other kids like Sean McLaughlin "may be what it's all about," Porcaro said.