STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

Parties in Sun Valley are a dime a dozen.

On Saturday and Sunday there will be a party unlike any of the others. But it stands heads above the others in terms of its importance.

Friends and family are throwing a Swab Party for 13-year-old Devon Peterson to try to find a match to help her overcome leukemia.

The party will be held from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 26, in the Merriwether Building courtyard outside the new Iconoclast Books & Gifts at 111 First Avenue N. in Hailey. It will continue from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday.

Peterson, a student at Wood River Middle School, was diagnosed with leukemia a year ago and came home to Bellevue this spring after doctors said she had gone into remission. She happily helped her mother Jennifer Peterson out at the Head Start school for preschoolers and got reacquainted with her beloved horse.

Now, Peterson is back for a second round of treatment at St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital in Boise and doctors believe that her best chance for recovery lies in a bone marrow transplant.

Representatives of DKMS, a nonprofit international organization founded in 1991 in Germany, will be on hand to test cheek swabs for matches for Human Leukocyte Antigens (HLA) tissue markers. The swabs test for 12 characteristics on these protein markers, which are found on most cells. Our immune system uses HLA markers to determine which cells belong in our body and which do not.

DKMS, which also has offices in the United Kingdom and New York, was founded with the idea that the more people tested the more opportunity there is to find matches to saves lives like Peterson’s.

Those who wish to volunteer or make a donation to help cover the costs of the test kits can contact Sarah Hedrick at Iconoclast Books at 208-726-1564 or make a donation via www.dkms.org.