Emru Townsend died Tuesday night after a year-long fight to beat the disease that ultimately took his life.

Emru — together with his sister Tamu — launched a public awareness campaign for bone marrow donation, which was the only viable treatment for his leukemia. Emru found a donor who was a match for him, but the treatment came too late.

Tamu said of her brother, “He taught a lot of people a lot of things, but he spent 2008 teaching people how to reach out to one another in a whole new way. If you carry some of this forward, it will be a year even better spent.”

Emru is survived by his wife Vicky and son Max.

To learn more about how you can become a bone marrow donor, visit HealEmru.com.