By Emma C. Fermo, Red Cross writer

For the last decade, John and Christine Burke have arrived at the American Red Cross donor center in Portland, Maine together. They compare schedules at the kitchen table, pick up Saturday or Sunday, and settle into their chairs side by side for the two-to-three-hour platelet donation. 

It is a routine for the Burkes. It is also, in their telling, a competition.

The competition has stakes now. Christine, recently diagnosed with breast cancer, is temporarily ineligible to donate.

“After you’ve been married for 47 years, everything becomes a competition,” Christine Burke says, “He can’t surpass me in number of units, that's not going to happen.”

By Emma Fermo, Red Cross writer

For Deb Camejo of Plymouth, New Hampshire, the need for blood was not just abstract; it was personal. Twice in her life, blood transfusions, given by strangers she will never meet, have kept her alive.

By Emma Fermo, Red Cross writer

For most of her life, Debora Johnson was the one doing the giving.

The 70-year-old Gorham resident spent 42 years shaping the early lives of children, as a preschool teacher, childcare administrator, and family support specialist in Portland, Oregon. Deb, now retired, donates quilts she makes to Ronald McDonald House, kids’ camps, and hospice groups. 

Giving, in all its forms, came naturally to her. 

by Emily Foshay - Red Cross volunteer writer

“At Unum, we see employees not just as employees, but as human beings as well.”