Kaywyn J. Beswick, R.N./Morrison Blood Team Leader, submitted this report and photo.
It was a chilly, pre-spring day on Thursday, March 18, when the second American Red Cross community blood drive of 2021 was held, at St. Mary Catholic Church at 13320 Garden Plain Road, Morrison, IL, from noon to 6:00 p.m.
The sponsor for the day was Bethesda Lutheran Church; they have sponsored a drive annually for 18 years! Thank you, BLC, for being a loyal sponsor for all these years. The women who purchased items and prepared the sandwiches and cookies for the canteen area were Nancy Pannier, Dee Janssen, Nancy Usterbowski, and Andrea Dalton. Thank you, faithful ladies.
Thank you to St. Mary Catholic Church, for agreeing that blood drives are “essential,” and for graciously allowing the ARC to continue Morrison’s Community Blood Drives every other month in your church hall. Thank you to the Knights of Columbus (Terry Hoehn, Jim Prombo, and Jimmy Prombo) for coming to move everything out of the church hall, the evening before the blood drive, and coming back at the end of the drive to return everything to its place. I appreciated your dependability, and muscles!
Thank you for the two certified ARC volunteers, Dan Ross from Coal Valley, IL, and Pat Pendgraft from Sterling, IL; I am grateful for your expertise. Much gratitude to my volunteers, Carole Patton, Jen Stoudt, and Mary and Vern Latwesen, who helped man the stations throughout the room during the day. I am thankful for your reliability.
The goal that the ARC had set for us was 59 “good units,” to head to Peoria, IL, at the end of the day. We exceeded the goal, with 74 units from 61 generous donors coming through the doors! That proved to be 127% efficiency, saving approximately 222 lives!
There were 14 amazing double red cell/Power Red donors. They were Vaughn Maxfield, Larry Oudekerk, Cindy Hoogheem, John “Jack” Bland, James “Dave” Boyles, Tammy Pruis, Jim Shirk, Dwain Schroeder, Harvey “Bud” Tegeler, DiAnn Adolph, Terry Jones, Jack Salo, Duane Imel, and one gentleman who did not want his name published.
The fabulous whole blood donors were Kirk Pfeiffer, Lorna Temple, Pamela Shank, Kent Stralow, Barb Imel, Lyle Bush, Craig Brady, Ken Gooley, Lisa Nice, Evan Davis, Mark Schuler, Julie Damhoff, Renee Vanderlaan, Bill Anderson, Stephanie Vavra, Teresa Slagle, Carolyn Aiken, Keith Wiersema, Donna Weets, Kevin Medenblik, Dawn Huffstutler, Joe R. Bielema, Dave Temple, Sheila Sonberg, Stone Zhang, Tim West, Beth Wroble, Nancy Shank, Tom Goldensoph, Mary Latwesen, Ted Volckmann, Kari Forster, Joan Vander Bleek, Derek Wilson, Heather Toppert, Haylee Knutti, and eight other people (four women and four men) who did not want their names published as blood donors. We had one first-time donor, Philip Olt, IV. Thank you for joining the ranks! There were nine “no show” appointments, but three walk-ins helped balance that out . Only one deferral is terrific. We usually anticipate a 7-10% deferral rate, but we had better blood pressures, pulses, and hemoglobin levels at this drive.
Unfortunately, I was told by the American Red Cross that the Jen Banks Memorial Blood Drives will no longer be an annual event. The committee has decided that, without a site available and with conflicting schedules, they would dissolve their drives. As a courtesy to the committee and the numerous family, friends, and coworkers that have donated at those drives, I am offering to those donors to come to the community drives. I will give them the opportunity to specify who they want to donate in honor of, or in memory of, and have those names published in the blood drive report. I hope that those particular donors will still donate with the American Red Cross, and still be able to give blood in honor of loved ones fighting diseases and in memory of those we have lost. Please pass this information to the many Jen Banks family members, friends, and coworkers.
The ARC recently acquired automatic facial temperature video screens, pictured, to eliminate close-contact temperature-taking. These are state-of-the-art technology!
The ARC is continuing to test donor blood for COVID-19 antibodies for free, indefinitely. Several donors have tested positive but were not aware that they had been infected with the coronavirus. If you would like to know if you have antibodies, you can come to donate blood to find out.
The blood donation process is easy, relatively painless, usually takes less than an hour, and allows you to save up to three lives!