When Michael Labella learned he could help keep his dad cancer-free through a bone-marrow transplant, the father of five did not hesitate to undergo the eight-hour procedure.

"When I was getting tested, I actually could not wait to be the donor," Labella, 40, of Massapequa, said Tuesday evening.

Seated next to him at an event in Woodbury celebrating the ongoing lives of leukemia survivors was his father, Joseph Labella.

"This is why I was put here on Earth and this is what we’re going to do together," Michael Labella said. "This is what we do. We’re Labellas."

About 10 months after the transplant, the healthy duo and their relatives sat among several other leukemia survivors and their donors at the Don Monti Memorial Research Foundation ’s annual "celebration of life" event at Crest

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