Donating blood: Sisters make it a game

By Brian Bouley, Red Cross Community Manager

It was my first blood drive as the new Community Manager in Aroostook County, Maine - the first of four that I planned on attending over the next few days. My goal for the day was simple, observe the operations of the blood drive and get a better understanding of how things work.

Things seemed to be going quite well. Blood collection was performed by a staff of professionals who do this for a living and the local community volunteers processing the donors, well, let’s just say it wasn’t their first rodeo. Everyone made the entire process look easy.

After being on my feet for a while, I took a seat on the bleachers and decided to interact with the donors, maybe ask them questions like “what inspired you to give blood today and what keeps you coming back?” That didn’t work out so well. Between the donors being instructed to “sit where there was tape on the seats” (understandable COVID-19 precaution) and everyone looking down at their smartphones, it was hard to make eye contact, let alone strike up a conversation with anyone.

Just when I was starting to think about packing it in for the day, I heard laughter coming from a volunteer who was working the post-donation snack area. Seated next to the volunteer were two women with the biggest smiles on their faces, you know, the kind of people who you can tell are open and friendly.

As I approached, the volunteer said to me, “Oh my God, these ladies are funny. You gotta hear their story about what they do at blood drives!" I introduced myself and let them know that I was looking for someone with an interesting story to write about. They said “Do we have a story for you”… I took a seat.

Irene Flint is from Nashville Plantation and her sister Cheryl Raymond is from Portage Lake. They have been making the almost 70-mile round trip to give blood for years. Their sister Betty Chapman, from Ashland, usually joins them but wasn’t available this day. When asked what keeps them coming back, Cheryl said, “the Red Cross workers”. She went on to say, “I want to add that the Red Cross workers have come to feel like friends we get to see every few months.  At Christmas, Betty and Irene make Christmas candies for the Red Cross workers. A part of me hates to keep saying 'Red Cross workers,' since we’ve come to know so many of them by name. However, if I tried to list names, I’m sure I’d forget to mention someone and then I’d feel awful. After all, they are the people with the needles!”

Irene says that she first gave blood back in the early 2000’s when her granddaughter, Jenna, was attending Presque Isle High School. As a member of the National Honor Society, Jenna was assigned a project to find five people to donate blood at an upcoming American Red Cross blood drive. Jenna found the donor volunteers within her family - which included her dad, her grandmother Irene and three others. Irene chuckled when she recalled that only she and her son were able to donate that day due to whatever issues the other three had.

Irene says that she has been coming to every blood drive (whenever she could make it), every two months, since her granddaughter first asked her to help. A few years later, Cheryl “decided to keep Irene company," so they joked. After Betty retired, she didn’t hesitate to join her sisters.

To keep things interesting, the ladies have devised a little rivalry between them. They invented a game where they can accumulate points: one point for best blood pressure, best iron and fastest donation time. Whomever gets the least points for that day must buy dinner for their group. On this day, it was unclear who won since accusations of time manipulation had the score in question (especially since Cheryl admitted to me that she once tried to bribe a Red Cross worker to tweak her numbers so she could win).

Ultimately, the sisters were happy to share that Betty has probably given more than five gallons of blood at this point. And Irene, in her words, "is closing in on her eighth gallon."

It was a pleasure to have met Irene and Cheryl at the Presque Isle blood drive. It’s nice to hear that the sisters make a day out of helping others by giving blood and have a little fun along the way. I’m sure that when Jenna asked her grandmother to give blood, she wouldn’t have imagined that two decades later they would still be going strong, having fun, making friends and saving lives.

If you'd like to donate, visit: redcrossblood.org