Hope for Gea

Hope for Gea is a personal awareness campaign built by Tom Nesci for his mother. Gea has been diagnosed with high-risk Myelodysplastic Syndrome, a rare blood cancer that, if untreated, will progress into Acute Myeloid Leukaemia. The only path forward is a stem cell transplant from a matching donor, and after Gea’s original match disappeared from the registry, the family began the search again. Tom built this site to give that search the broadest possible reach.

The brief came from a place of love and urgency. Tom needed somewhere honest to tell his mum’s story, somewhere to direct people who wanted to help, and somewhere to explain a process most people have never thought about. The site needed to drive cheek swab registrations through Stem Cell Donors Australia, surface the eligibility criteria in plain language, and carry the personal weight of the campaign without losing the practical focus on getting more young people onto the registry.

The site is built as a single scrolling page experience, with a clear three-step “Recipe for becoming a life saver” walk-through that takes visitors from registration through to returning a cheek swab in the mail. The eligibility criteria, aged 18 to 35, in good general health, and willing to donate to any patient in need, sit alongside the steps so visitors can quickly check whether they can help. A “See if I’m a match” CTA pushes directly to the Stem Cell Donors Australia appeal page for Gea.

Gea’s Journey, Your Support and Personal Note pages give the campaign room to breathe. The Personal Note in particular carries Tom’s voice without the polish of a marketing campaign, which is exactly what gives it weight. A Facebook video from Gea sits embedded in the page, putting her in front of visitors directly so the story is not just told but heard from her.

The Why Is This Important section steps out of the personal frame to explain the broader Australian stem cell donation landscape. Roughly 80% of Australian patients needing transplants rely on overseas donors. The Australian registry has just over 160,000 registered donors against a much larger global need. Younger donors are associated with better outcomes. Diverse representation matters because patients are more likely to match within their own ethnic groups. Putting these facts in the centre of the campaign extends the reach beyond the people who know Gea personally, which is the entire point.

The footer carries a quiet but important line: this site was built in collaboration with DeCODE Digital, an agency that came about through Gea’s mentoring. That single sentence captures what makes this project different from anything else in the portfolio. It is a pro-bono build for the woman who, in her own way, helped DeCODE exist in the first place. The site does not need to convert. It needs to reach the one person who could be Gea’s match.