Mallory Gaspar
and her brother, Mark Gaspar, donated blood at the Carpenters Local 195 union hall in Ottawa, Illinois yesterday.
For the last eight years, retired Local 195 member/organizer, Fred Nimke, has been coordinating a blood drive at the Carpenters hall. Nimke said that this was the 49th blood drive with the American Red Cross and that they have collected over 1200 pints of blood plus today’s collection of at least 48 pints.
The blood drive was started after the 9-11 tragedy. “We wanted to do something and the soonest the Red Cross could schedule a drive was February 2002,” said Nimke. Since then, Fred has been actively promoting the blood drives and showing up six times a year to coordinate the effort for Illinois Valley residents.
According to Nimke, each pint can save up to three lives; “potentially we have saved over to 3,600 lives,” he added.
One of the things that makes America great is volunteerism and citizen responses to things like 9-11 or Katrina. It felt good donating my pint of blood today and I am glad that there are people out there like Fred Nimke to lead these efforts. I snapped some photos with my phone camera and saved readers from the “needle shot.”
The next blood drive in the Illinois Valley will be Tuesday, June 1st from 12:00 – 5:00 p.m. at Carpenters Hall Local 195 (1001 Boyce Memorial Drive, Ottawa, IL). All donors are welcome. Appointments are preferred (call 815.257.5433), but not necessary.