The McRaes have hosted the Junction City drive on their wedding anniversary for 15 years
[JUNCTION CITY, KAN. – Jan 2, 2024] – Tom and Joyce McRae have different plans for their 55th anniversary.
They are rolling up their sleeves to host and donate at the annual Junction City Blood Drive.
“Anyone can go to dinner or on a cruise for their anniversary, but anyone can also host a blood drive. It’s just a more important thing to do,” said Joyce. “Donating on our anniversary was Tom’s idea. Naida Sanders had done it seventeen years and was retiring. I went to give blood and my iron was too low. I started crying and she said, ‘Oh, I got you!’ and we’ve been together ever since!”
She has since given over 12 gallons of blood and counting. Tom’s current total is 14 gallons, starting from when he eighteen years old and enlisted in the military.
“They volunteered the whole company to donate. Notice I said ‘they’?” he laughed.
Their values for donation were passed along to their family, with two children and a son-in-law regularly donating blood. Even when the elder McRaes travel, if their donation time draws near, they use the Red Cross Blood Donor app to schedule a vacation donation. So far they have donated in 12 states, including Alaska, Texas, Florida, Illinois, Utah, Alabama, and Nebraska.
After fifteen years of hosting the blood drive, they are closing this particular chapter of service. They still plan to donate and help at future drives. They recounted “some crazy drives” over the years, like when a five-hour computer outage stopped donations but donors made the 40-mile trip back to their drive to make good on their appointment, and meeting a man who gave 33 gallons of blood over his lifetime only donating in Junction City. They have also made many friends along the way, including their Red Cross blood drive account manager, Kristi Ingalls. Tom keeps a list of contacts to give flyers before every drive. Churches especially are helpful to this drive, with congregants from the Junction City First United Methodist church making up a large part of the donor base.
The drive has a goal of 98 units. Grateful volunteers plan to have cake to share with the donors to celebrate the McRae’s legacy.
There is a possible new host for the drive, but nothing has been confirmed. Whoever that may be, Joyce leaves them with this wisdom: “Just enjoy it. It’s really a pretty good thing. The people are fun and they’re there because they want to be. Nobody tackles them and says, ‘you have to give blood today!’ Just have fun with it.”
By Logan Wright