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November 2009
Index of all
past
Affiliate Corner columns
As holiday season approaches, let’s give and give
and give and give (and give)
By Bert Hermelink,
Strategic Advantage Financial, AAR Affiliate Chairman
The Association’s REALTORS® and Affiliates are giving people. The many levels of REALTOR® Associations in Colorado and across the nation support numerous charities and organizations. We donate our money and we try to give back to our communities.
But…there are serious needs in our communities that money alone cannot reach. Even time along with the money is sometimes not enough. One of these needs seems to fly under the radar, except in times of disastrous circumstances: the need for blood.
A personal need
In May, 1996, I was diagnosed with a rare form of anemia. That night, they gave me five units of blood. Over the next year, until I had a bone marrow transplant, I received almost 100 units.
Another AAR Affiliate member, Louis Montez of Happy Homes Property Inspections, had a stem cell transplant last year. As people who have tapped the community’s blood supply, we are acutely aware of the need and would not be alive today if caring people had not become blood donors.
Bonfils Blood Center tells us that every two seconds someone in the United States needs a transfusion. Bonfils needs more than 4,000 donors per week to meet local blood needs. The component parts of blood – plasma, platelets and red blood cells – are often needed in addition to whole blood. And the only source is healthy donors.
If you can, will you?
Many of us who have personally benefited from blood donation would love to contribute ourselves, but our medical history disqualifies us. Most of you reading this article can give blood, but only four percent of Coloradans do.
AAR’s Affiliate Committee, with approval of the staff and Board of Directors of the Aurora Association of REALTORS®, is getting behind the efforts of the Bonfils Blood Center. We hope to organize and sponsor our first formal AAR Blood Drive, which will hopefully be repeated at least twice each year.
Please watch for information and participate in our drive. And if for some reason our plans fall through, please call Bonfils at (303) 366-2000 and make an appointment to donate on your own. At the same time, you could decide to be screened to be a bone marrow/stem cell donor, which is a need also prevalent in our community.
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