Two United Methodist Churches Partner in Saving Lives

 The United Methodist Church in Nichols and the United Methodist Church in Tioga Center have partnered to provide a blood drive rotation for willing donors every 56 days. Of the combined 2,000 residents in these two towns, the American Red Cross received just under 100 units of blood in 2004; approximately 1% of the population donates at each blood drive.  The church pastors, Pastor Val Rommel and Pastor Larry Mather, learned about the growing need for blood donors and the importance of having regular and local blood drives in their community and worked out a plan with the American Red Cross to rotate blood drives between the two churches. This will allow donors in the area to have a consistent place to donate and hopefully increase the number of overall donations per year.  Beginning January 29, at the United Methodist Church in Tioga Center, blood drives will be held from 7:30 am to 12:30 pm every other month on the fourth Saturday of the month. The United Methodist Church in Nichols will host the drives in March, July, and November, and the United Methodist Church in Tioga Center will host the drives in January, May and September.

 "The next step in involving the community is to locate willing volunteers to phone the current donors and notify them of the upcoming blood drives," stated Jill Hoekstra, Account Manager for the NYPenn-Region of the American Red Cross.  If you are willing to help in this effort, please call Jill at (607) 227-3397.  

 All interested blood donors are urged to schedule an appointment for the upcoming blood drive by calling  1-800-GIVE-LIFE or visiting the Web site www.donatebloodnow.org.  Anyone 17  years or older, weighing at least 110 pounds, and in general good health may be eligible to donate blood.