AUSTIN, Texas — A young Texan is battling leukemia and needs a bone marrow match.

Despite everything she’s been through, she’s not letting it take her spirit and has started a campaign to get people to join the donor registry.

A donor must:

Even though she’s facing a big battle, little Riley Furlong is resilient.  

“I have a lot of support from my family friends and I don’t know my dog, which is my family,” she said. 

The 9-year-old who lives in Central Texas was diagnosed with leukemia in December 2016. She has been getting chemotherapy and now faces a bone marrow transplant. 

“She amazes me, she’s so positive her nickname is smiley Riley and she just takes it in stride and knows this is something she’s got to go through,” said her mother, Alexandra Furlong.  

About 25 percent of patients have a matching bone marrow donor in their families, so the rest turn to the national registry, according to “Be The Match.” This February, Riley and her father Bill Furlong created a video hoping to get 1,000 people to sign up by the end of this month. 

“I’m not asking for your time or for your money, I’m asking you for something, I’m pretty sure you have plenty of, I’m asking you for your spit,” Riley Furlong said in the video. 

“Despite all of the challenges in the past year, she is someone who goes through life with a big smile on her face, and so the easy part of it was putting that spirit and character into [the video], because that was just Riley speaking from her heart,” Bill Furlong said. 

After signing up online, registrants receive a kit in the mail with four applications and are supposed to swab each around the corner of their cheeks for about eight seconds.

“The more people in the database  the better chance you have of finding a perfect match and we just want to pay it forward to anybody who might be going through this,” Alexandra Furlong said.

About one in 300 people will be selected as the best possible donor for a patient, according to Be The Match. 

“Everybody that I’ve talked to that’s a donor said that even with that little bit of discomfort that they would make that donation again in a heartbeat, because of what it means to that recipient,”  said Samuel Hillhouse, a community engagement for GenCure in partnership with Be The Match. 

Riley’s campaign is not just for herself, but for the thousands across the country in need of a bone marrow match. There are about 900 patients in Texas looking, Hillhouse said.  

“There’s people who can be a hero day in and day out by joining a bone marrow registry and becoming a donor,” Bill Furlong said. “It doesn’t take jumping into a river, you don’t have to risk your life to do it.” 

If anyone wants to help out and "Spit For Riley" and others in need, head to Riley Furlong's personalized link: join.bethematch.org/SpitForRiley