The American Red Cross held their summer community blood drive on August 4th at the First Baptist Church in Memphis. To show their appreciation to our donors, the Red Cross gave away St. Louis Cardinals t-shirts to all donors and held a drawing for two family packs of four tickets to Six Flags in St. Louis.
Debbie Woods and Michelle VanGorkom were the winners of the tickets to Six Flags. Over seventy people came out to donate and a total of sixty-seven units of blood were collected during the drive, four of which were Power Red units.
There were two first-time donors for this drive, the brother and sister duo of Brian Chance and Michelle VanGorkom. Also, there were many who reached different gallon-donation goals.
One gallon represents eight units of blood donated by the donor. Edward See reached the one-gallon mark. Carolyn M Martin and Kathy L. Martin reached the goal of two gallons.
Anna M. Martin earned the three-gallon mark. Wanda Remley, Trenton Tallman and John Van Dyke reached the four-gallon mark, Howard E. Harvey, the five-gallon mark and James R. McClintic, the six-gallon mark.
The goal of seven-gallons was reached by Karen Brubaker, Larry F. Smith and John Schaffer and Katherine E. Forrester reached the eight-gallon mark.
Larry Riney, one of our community’s most consistent longtime donors, donated his 400th unit of blood putting him at fifty gallons. Way to go, Larry!
Special thanks to The Lighthouse of Faith Church for providing homemade cookie, to the Community Bank for providing sandwiches and to J’s Food for providing orange juice to all donors.
Also, a very special thanks to all our local volunteers who serve to make this event possible and provide comfort and support to both the Red Cross workers and all who give.
