Two and a half year old Mélia Payne loves to play and dance, especially when Dora the Explorer is playing on the television set. 

"She is one of the sweetest little girls you will ever meet," said her mom Tiffany Payne. "She has the biggest heart, is full of life and just loves to laugh and be silly." 

Mélia is your typical toddler except for the little unicorn bag she carries with her everywhere she goes. 

"She was in the hospital for eight months with her initial diagnoses and she was running the halls every day," she said. The doctors were shocked because they would look at her and shake their heads saying she should not be feeling that well right now."

Mélia was diagnosed with infant Leukemia one day before her first birthday and relapsed about a year later. She is now among the first people to enroll in a new clinical trial at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario. The trial requires her to be attached to special drugs for 28 days straight. 

"She wants to fight and she wants to beat this so badly. She is very much loved," her mom said. 

The next step in Mélia's treatment is a bone marrow transplant in Toronto. So far the family has not found a donor, but doctors say it is likely. 

"It means the world to us," said her dad Kevin Payne. "It's basically giving us our daughter back and giving her back the life she deserves and the life we want for her." 

To help Mélia and others find a donor, a swab-a-thon was organized at a local hockey tournament in Carp. The charity Mind Matter Ink  got the Canadian Blood Services involved to help interested players and their families sign up to be donors. 

"We are really trying to get as many young men ages 17  to 35 registered for the One Match program because males provide the best outcome post-transplant," said Jessica Stergio with the Canadian Blood Services. "There is a lower risk of something called graft vs host disease when it is a male donor, a younger donor is the same thing." 

At any given time about 1,000 Canadians are wating to be matched with a donor but only half will find someone. Four out of every five donors are male and only 25 per cent of donors are family members. 

"This need is great because people who might not have ever heard of the program will hear about it. They are just out to play hockey today and coming out to play hockey they might pay it forward and possibly save a life.

Anyone who wants to sign up as a donor can do so at Blood.Ca.