2009 Year in Review

March 3rd Blood Drive Meets Goal

Ron Wiersema

Jan Kelly

Lyle Bush

March was National Blood Month and, in Morrison, we celebrated! The Tuesday, March 3rd blood drive was well attended, with each donor being offered a free American Red Cross t-shirt! Ken Kophamer Realty was our sponsor, providing the monies for the food and drinks.

We had 67 wonderful people attempt to give a part of themselves in order to help those with medical needs. Though three were deferred and one left due to time constraints, we still reached our personal goal of "65 through the door”!

We had six fantastic double-red-cell donors, giving the equivalent of two units. They were Vernon Latwesen, David Abele, Don E. Smith, Milton Bush, Kent Stralow, and Ed Anderson.

Three brave people stepped up to the plate and were "first-time" donors; they were Mary Francis, Anna Smith, and Jacqueline Tilton ! We are so PROUD of you three ladies and hope that you have now made a new life-change habit becoming a regular blood donor!

The rest of the terrific donors for the day were Stephanie Vavra, Ron Wiersema, Mary Latwesen, Janice Kelly, Lyle Bush, Kim Zuidema, Renee Adolph, Virginia Ewurs, Lori Ploenzke, Alan Manchester, Jeanne Strobbe, Janet McCord, Lynn Reimer, Renee Vanderlaan, Albert Drews, Alex Magana, Beth Wroble, Marcia DeBoer, Tami Bull, Jeff Bull, Marian Dykema, Dominic Mucci, Sue Meiers, Dave Shetler, Tom DeMay, Bob Zuidema, Chris Hawkins, Mathew Hill, Clayton Deter, Stephen Sippel, Mark Schuler, Kaywyn Beswick, Deb Eissens, Renee Temple, Harvey Tegeler, Lorna Temple, Todd Thumma, Susan Noble, Connie Swanson- Despain, Nina Damhoff, Robin Nelson, Joel Perino, Carolyn Aiken, Christine Bielema, Evan Haag, Lisa M. Wiersema, Neal Hudson, Joe R. Bielema, Brooke Newman, Ron Shank, Dave Temple, Mildred Schaver, Bradley Bielema, James Shirk, Heather Fetzer, Bev Ryan, and Linda Temple.

First and foremost, thanks to Kiwanis who set up and take down the truck equipment each and every blood drive (apparently I did not thank them in the last blood drive report, sorry if you felt excluded) ; thanks to all the volunteers that we called to fill all the duty stations; Norma and Leon Haan, Marilyn Habben, Ken and Esther Huizenga, Irma Brands, Maisie Renkes, Marian Dykema, Terrianne Kuraz, Karen Zuidema, Andrea Wieneke, Noreen Carney and Marge Schleuning.

Thanks to food preparers Rhea Butner, Eleanor Nice, and Margaret Bradshaw. Special thanks to Marilyn and Bob Schick for all their expertise in organizing and managing the kitchen and its helpers for the day; we could not have done it without you! Thanks to cookie donations from Marilyn Schick, Jan Horberg, and Kaywyn Beswick.

Tremendous thanks to United Methodist Church for the use of their wonderful facility for the day. Thanks to all the churches who put the drive info in their bulletins, and to the businesses who let us hang up our drive posters. You all help to make it possible! We could not do it every 8 weeks without our extremely generous community! Hope to see you all at the next drive on Tuesday, May 19th at the United Methodist Church!

Respectfully submitted with much gratitude, coordinators Kaywyn Beswick and Jackie Tilton.

by Dawn Zuidema, theCity1.com
March 23, 2009