Yesterday, I spent 6 hours at the College of St. Joseph in Rutland, Vermont volunteering for the Gift of Life Marathon. I performed one of my favorite volunteer tasks: registration. When you register people for an event, you get to greet them and see how excited they are to participate. Wearing a Santa hat and a colorful scarf, I helped to process the steady stream of people who came out on a rather nasty winter day to donate the gift of life-saving blood this holiday season.
As the photo above can attest, we started out amazingly strong. I had a sense that we were going to easily achieve our goal of breaking the current national record for pints of blood given in one day in a city. That record, held by Manchester, NH, was 1968 pints.
The numbers quickly leveled off, and success was looking farther away. As the waits for even those with appointments grew longer and longer, we worried that people would just go home (some did). However, the people of Rutland would not let a little snow and waiting keep them from helping our small city make a big difference!
The final tally of blood donated was 2300 pints! Over 300 pints more than was needed to break the record. Rutland’s achievement was a wonderful way to end the year! I was filled with such adrenaline after being part of this event that I could hardly sleep. The other volunteers were amazing, and to see so many people come out to give blood warmed my heart.
Thank you, Rutland, for being a place I can be proud to call “home.”
