With the help of his daughter and wife, we're trying to surprise someone very passionate about donating blood. We caught up with Jim Stricker at a recent blood drive. I explained that his wife Karen sent us an email and read a portion of it.
"I would like to nominate my husband, Jim Stricker, for your People Taking Action award."
She shared how for 14 years, Jim has helped organize blood drives at their Chesapeake church, Aldersgate United Methodist. They have one every eight weeks and over the years have collected more than 5, 000 pints of blood.
Karen continues in her email, "He will be the first to say that it is a team effort, and it is through volunteers at our church; however, without him these blood drives would not happen.
I would love it if you could surprise him with your People Taking Action award." And we did just that.
We also presented him with a $100 Visa gift card from our community partner Southern Bank.
Jim has been donating blood since he was 16-years-old. He`s up to 264 pints, and over the years, that`s added up to about 33 gallons of blood.
So why has he become a regular donor?
"Parents were blood donors, sisters, the whole family`s been in the game."
And Jim has also seen firsthand how donating blood saves lives, like years ago when his daughter was born.
"She was born as a premature infant. She was born at 25 weeks, one pound, 15 ounces and needed blood transfusions, so I was to do that."
If you'd like to donate blood, check out the website here.
