FAIRFAX BOY SCOUT GIVES LOCAL CATHOLICS OPPORTUNITY

Van Lantagne is all smiles as she helps to save lives through her gift of blood (Photo by Emily Bessette)
By Emily A. Bessette
Tribune Correspondent
FAIRFAX - They came so that they might give the gift of life.
Eagle Scout candidate JeanPaul Bombardier of Fairfax organized a July 19 blood drive at Bellows Free Academy, and 63 people attended in hopes of giving blood. Of these, 50 pints of viable blood were collected from donors in Fairfax and the surrounding towns. This matched the goal of total pints that the American Red Cross and Bombardier set for the event.
A requirement of every Boy Scout is "to serve God and my country," and Bombardier saw sponsoring a blood drive as an opportunity to do both. Being Catholic, he said, is "to see a need and fill it," and the need for blood in Vermont is great; currently the Red Cross has only a 1-day supply of blood.

Van Lantagne is one Catholic who helps to meet the demand for blood. A seventh grade religious education teacher and parishioner at St. Luke Church, here, she has been a donor for 31 years; she began donating blood after losing a dear friend to leukemia, a disease that requires numerous transfusions of blood and blood products. Lantagne sees donating blood as an opportunity for every Catholic to minister to the sick. "I can't be at a hospital all the time" she said, "but my blood can." The universal need for blood is for Lantagne a call to the universal Catholic Church to fill this need. "It's a really easy way to serve, just as Jesus did."

Lantagne echoes Pope John Paul II's teachings on organ and blood donation. In his 1995 encyclical "Evangelium Vitae," the pope praises the "heroic actions" of donors who participate in the "solemn celebration of the Gospel of life, [which they] proclaim by the total gift of self." He calls upon Catholics to celebrate this Gospel of life in their daily lives which should be filled with "self-giving love for others."

Blood collected in Vermont is sent to as many as 170 different hospitals in central and northern New England. The donations collected in Fairfax this month helped fulfill the needs of this vast area, which requires more than 350,000 donations per year.

As Pope John Paul II stated in his 1984 remarks on donors, the gesture of giving blood is "an offering to the Lord, who identified himself with those who suffer … (it is) a gift made to the suffering Lord, who in His Passion gave Himself completely and poured out His blood for the salvation of mankind."

Anyone wishing to donate blood may call the ARC Donor Center in Burlington at 1-800-843-3500 or check the Web for clinics being held in their area at www
.newenglandblood.org/vermont/schedule.htm