Helping the Community

09/17/2012
By Victor L. Shermer, ASBP Blood Donor Recruiter, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash.

Twenty-four of the 32 volunteers from the Armed Services Blood Bank Center—Pacific Northwest.

The Armed Services Blood Bank Center—Pacific Northwest is always looking for volunteers to donate blood. But recently, it was the ASBBC-PNW that did some donating, and it was not blood.

Last month, a team effort was made by the staff of the ASBBC-PNW and the Department of Preventative Medicine. Volunteering to help the community through an organization called Paint Tacoma-Pierce Beautiful, which is a program of Associated Ministries, a Christian, ecumenical organization that partners with more than 250 Pierce County congregations and interfaith partners to unite people of faith to build a stronger community.

Paint Tacoma-Pierce Beautiful out of Tacoma, Wash., organizes volunteer crews to paint and make minor repairs to homes belonging to low-income senior and disabled homeowners. All the work is done by volunteer crews from churches, service clubs, businesses, unions and government offices. The ASBBC-PNW staff helped paint the home of a low-income senior in the community. People qualifying for the services of this program meet federal low-income guidelines.

“This is the best crew of volunteers I have ever had,” said Greg Newkirk, director of Paint Tacoma-Pierce Beautiful. “If I had this crew on other projects I would be able to get so much more accomplished.”

Due to medical problems Christine Lezobrak had not been able to keep her yards, full of plants and surrounded by trees, trimmed and manicured. It was so overgrown that the house could not be seen from the street. Thirty-three personnel volunteered to assist by mowing, trimming overgrown trees and bushes, and clearing planters of weeds. Two 8 foot by 20 foot by 8 foot collection bins were filled. Lezobrak, a quite lady, when asked what she thought of all the activity going on around their home, she replied, “It’s nice!”

Where there was once an overshadowing of trees and bushes, now the sun shines through to give life to new growth of smaller plants and a warming to the house. All attributed to the volunteers of Madigan’s service members and civilians alike, bringing the sunshine in.

To find out more about the Armed Services Blood Program or to schedule an appointment, please visit us online: www.militaryblood.dod.mil. To interact directly with some of our staff, see more photos or to get the latest news, visit us here: www.facebook.com/militaryblood, www.flickr.com/militaryblood and www.twitter.com/militaryblood.