Brenda Day was pleased to share the spotlight.
Day was presented a scroll and a congratulatory cake on June 4 at the local community centre to help her celebrate her 90th blood donation.
She was the first person to donate blood when the clinics in Elora began. They were separated from the ones in Fergus because that clinic was getting too big and there were enough donors for a clinic in Elora.
“I started in 1977,” Day said of her donations. Each pint of blood can help as many as three people, so Day has now had a positive effect on 270 people.
She said her first donations were made at GSW, a factory in Fergus, and then the donations centre later moved to the Fergus Legion. When it outgrew the Legion, it moved to the community centre, now called a Sportsplex.
“Now, I’m here,” she said as she sliced pieces of cake to hand out to the many people who were volunteering at the Elora clinic or giving blood.
Day said the 90 donations are “unusual for women.”
She explained that women often outnumber men when it comes to people donating blood, but, she noted, men who do come to donate generally do it far more regularly.
She then pointed to lawyer John Morris, who had just walked in, and suggested he was either close to, or had even exceeded the donations she had made.
When Morris checked, he found they were each making their 90th donations that day, so they decided to celebrate and share the anniversary and the cake.
Community Development Co-ordinator for Canadian Blood Services, Sharr Cairns, reported that Day and Morris were two of 109 donors that day.
“We collected 109 units, welcomed four first time donors,” she said. The sponsor for the day was Optimist Club of Elora.
