It takes 20 minutes of your time and could save the life of someone's daughter, brother, or spouse. LifeSouth in Dothan is working to increase the number of people on the donor registry.

Getting on the list usually costs $65 but until the 22 of this month LifeSouth is making it free. All you have to do is fill out the paperwork, have your mouth swabbed for cells with a q-tip and wait for someone to match you.

Sandra Hollis, Regional Manager for LifeSouth said, "If you're on the registry you may never be called, you may be called once and save someone's life."

The national bone marrow registry is struggling to find volunteers to sign up for the program.

"To donate your marrow to someone else you have to match 6 out of 8 antigens and it's hard to do especially with different ethnicities," Hollis said.

Bone marrow registry participant Jeni Culver said, "It's important because me, I'm black and I could help out others who are black and may need the marrow."

Giving bone marrow in the past was a time consuming, very painful procedure. New changes in the process have made the process much more patient friendly.

Hollis said, "You are under anesthesia and the marrow is taken out of your hip bone and you go back to work the next day or two."

As if that's not simple enough, there's an even faster, less painful way many donors are helping patients.

"The more common and recent type is where a donor is given Filgastric and you are put on a machine to separate your blood and those cells are donated to the patient in need."

The process is free to the patient; all medical costs associated with the procedure are covered by the marrow recipient.

You have to be between the ages of 18 and 61 to register and in good health

You would like to join the bone marrow registry you can stop by LifeSouth. They are open every day of the week or you may log onto www.bethematch.org/marrowthon.

You can enter the promo code ffb09 to make the process free of charge