HOME |
RSS | 
Joe Johnson has lived at the Morningside retirement center in Greenwood, South Carolina, for about ten years now. He’s been a regular blood donor for most of his life, and sees no reason to stop now.
Johnson said in the same phone call that he began donating after he joined the Army in Tennessee at age 21 and kept it up after moving to Florida, and then later South Carolina. The former infantry soldier said he served in Europe — though not in combat — and back in the United States, training National Guard forces.
“They’d say to us, ‘Line up and give blood’ and maybe out of 200 or so in the company, maybe 40 or 50 guys would do it. Some people would just walk away, but I never did,” Johnson said. “I constantly gave blood. I had a routine going.”
Johnson celebrated his 96th birthday on Tuesday with a cake, which Amerson said he insisted on sharing with some of the other 43 residents at the assisted living home. His most recent blood donation was a week earlier when a mobile unit made one of its periodic visits to the retirement home.
There is no upper age limit for blood donation, as long as the donor is healthy. Johnson plans to continue giving, and says he is “good for a few years more.” Link -via Breakfast Links
(Image credit: AP/The Blood Connection)
Kiseung Lee, a designer who lives in Helsinki, made these stockings to encourage people to give blood. If you do choose to donate blood, make sure that it’s yours. Some blood banks are really nit-picky about their petty little rules.
Link -via Nerdcore | Photo: Dezeen
Al Fischer, an 75-year-old New York man has reached a very commendable milestone: he has donated 40 gallons of blood over 58 years!
The print shop operator from Massapequa, affectionately known as Albee, has been donating blood every year since 1951, when Harry S. Truman was in the White House – 11 presidents ago.
So far, Fischer has given 319 pints of blood and he will do it again Tuesday in Woodbury, bringing his lifetime donation to a total of 40 gallons.
"I’m too cheap to give money, so I give blood," Fischer, 75, said jokingly.
Fischer is estimated to have helped almost 1,000 people who needed blood transfusion. Newsday has the story: Link (Photo: Howard Schnapp)
