Red Cross honors volunteers
By Becky Barclay
Published in News on August 29, 2004 8:18 AM
Durwood Bostic, a five-year volunteer with the Red Cross, received the Wayne County Chapter's highest honor Friday -- the Mary C. Norwood Award.
The award was presented during the chapter's annual meeting Friday at the Goldsboro Country Club.
Donna Edmundson, board chairman, said Bostic is dependable and very compassionate. She said, "he's on call 24/7 and gives more than 40 hours a week to the Red Cross."
Since becoming a volunteer with the national Red Cross, Bostic has been to more than 16 disasters.
Other volunteer awards were also presented during the meeting. Teresa Williams, disaster chairman, gave medallions to Bostic, Dora Perry, Roberto Mendoza and Jo Peterson.
Cindy Umstead, health and safety chairman, presented awards to Mendoza, Fontaine Swinson, Richard Grady, Diana Parker, Margaret Lockard and Nona Robbins.
First-time sponsor awards for blood drives went to Goldsboro District of the Social Security Office, Spring Creek Elementary School, New Hope United Methodist Church, Mays Chapel Church, Greenleaf Christian Church, BB&T, Pine Forest United Methodist Church and Mt. Carmel United Methodist Church.
Don Best, blood services director, also recognized news media including the Goldsboro News-Argus, WGBR Radio, Parker Advertising, Curtis Media Group and Mount Olive Tribune.
He recognized Krispy Kreme for donating doughnuts for blood drives, Adams Auto Wash for donating more than 6,000 coupons for free car washes and Wal-Mart for donating supplies for the canteen for the blood drives.
Plaques went to Berkeley Mall, Wayne Memorial Hospital, Lowe's for holding five blood drives last year and Wayne Community College, Georgia Pacific and Goldsboro Milling Co. for holding four.
A traveling plaque was presented to Charles B. Aycock High School for schools holding blood drives.
Chevrolet Cadillac of Goldsboro received the Margaret M. Moore trophy for a company with less than 100 employees holding a blood drive.
Wayne Memorial Hospital received the Arnold B. Edgerton trophy for a company with more than 100 employees holding a blood drive.
Chuck Waller, the chapter's new director, was the speaker. He said when the world falls down, it's the Red Cross who is asked to pick it up again.
He noted that every two seconds, there's a call for blood. And 33,000 times a day every day, someone empowers himself with a lifesaving skill by taking a CPR or first aid course. Every 12 seconds, an emergency communications is delivered across thousands of miles.
"Human nature is the only force on earth more powerful than Mother Nature," Waller said.
He listed three threads that are common to volunteers -- attitude, a unique perspective and a will to serve. "The best way to measure a big man is by the way he treats the little man," said Waller.
The director related the true story of a man whose two-year-old daughter was diagnosed with leukemia.
The man asked the doctors where they went from there. The doctors said the little girl needed chemotherapy.
They told the man the first time he saw his baby with no hair, a part of him would die. They told him he would see his baby so tired after treatments that she wouldn't be able to lift her head up off her pillow.
They told him he'd see her doubled over in pain from the treatments and when her bottom lip trembled and her eyes filled with tears, he'd wrap his arms around her until the pain went away.
Finally, after 18 months of being in remission, the leukemia came back and it came back worse than before. And his daughter needed a bone marrow transplant to live.
The man said the thing that touched him the most was when his daughter was in the recovery room after the transplant and was receiving platelets, he realized that all of the marvels of medicine were man-made and all the medicines were man-made. But the platelets were something a complete stranger had donated, someone who would never see or know his daughter.
"The kindest thing we can say about the blood we collect is that we hope you never need it, but if you do, aren't you glad it will be there?" asked Waller.