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\n \t<\/a>\n\t\t <\/div>\n and her brother, Mark Gaspar, donated blood at the Carpenters Local 195 union hall in Ottawa, Illinois yesterday.<\/p>\nFor the last eight years, retired Local 195 member\/organizer, Fred Nimke, has been coordinating a blood drive at the Carpenters hall.\u00a0 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\u2019s collection of at least 48 pints.<\/p>\n
The blood drive was started after the 9-11 tragedy.\u00a0 \u201cWe wanted to do something and the soonest the Red Cross could schedule a drive was February 2002,\u201d 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\n \t<\/a>\n\t\t <\/div>\n According to Nimke, each pint can save up to three lives; \u201cpotentially we have saved over to 3,600 lives,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\nOne of the\u00a0things that makes America great is volunteerism and citizen responses to things like 9-11 or Katrina.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I snapped some photos with my phone camera\u00a0and saved readers from the “needle shot.”<\/p>\n
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