Folk Legend Performs Benefit Show for Fair Lawn Boy

Singer Peter Yarrow will play a benefit concert in Manhattan this weekend to raise money for a Fair Lawn boy in a need of a bone marrow transplant.

Yarrow, best known as one-third of the 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, will perform Sunday afternoon at the Highline Ballroom on W. 16th Street to bring awareness to the need for bone marrow and stem cell donation. Money raised will go to the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation to support the costly process of testing donor kits in the hope of finding matches for people in need of a transplant.

Four-year-old borough resident Ezra Fineman is one such individual looking for a match.

Diagnosed with the rare genetic disorder Hyper IgM Syndrome when he was five months old, Ezra's immune sytstem is unable to produce enough of its own antibodies to fight off illnesses.

As a result, Ezra can't attend school and his parents must be extremely careful when they take him out in public. His mother, Robin, said she takes special precautions with anything Ezra comes in contact with.

“The produce he eats must be cleaned a certain way, and his water must be filtered a certain way,” she said.

The only cure for Ezra's condition is a bone marrow transplant. Neither of Ezra’s parents nor any other member of his family is a perfect match.

To faciliate finding a match for Ezra, the Finemans connected with Gift of Life, a public bone marrow registry that helps find matching donors for people in need of bone marrow transplants. 

Ezra underwent a stem cell transplant using an umbilical cord blood unit at Sloan-Kettering last year because a proper match could not be found.

"Unfortunately, the transplant has failed and his old immune system has grown back," Robin said. "We continue to look for a match for him."

You can learn more about Ezra on Facebook or at his blog.

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