WEST LIBERTY – The pilgrims would be impressed by the Thanksgiving Eve activities at Quest Community Church. As with the origin of the holiday, Quest welcomes many to the table.
On Nov. 24, the church held its regular bi-monthly blood drive in the log cabin chapel and followed it by hosting the West Liberty Ministerium Thanksgiving Eve service in the main sanctuary.
“They’re using our church to livestream for the Thanksgiving Eve service,” said Pastor Bill Walker. “But we have a big parking lot, so we’ll be fine. We just put it on our sign – this is a high traffic road – so a lot of people see it.”
Quest has been putting up the sign and rolling out the welcome mat for Community Blood Center blood drives since 2020, when the arrival of COVID-19 made it impossible to continue blood drives at the nearby Green Hills Community senior care facility.
“We said we’d like to do this, and it was no problem at all,” said Pastor Walker. “We also knew that you guys had your safeguards in place. We just open our doors. It’s easy for us, we love the building being used. We never say ‘no’ to non-profits and we never charge.”
CBC honored Quest as a “Crisis Hero” of the pandemic. At the Thanksgiving Eve blood drive Pastor Walker chatted with Zanesfield donor Season Wall, who made an easy transition from donating at Green Hills to Quest.
“Everybody here is super-duper nice!” said Season.
West Liberty donor Kim Ramsey didn’t hesitate to include a blood donation in her busy holiday schedule. “I come every time,” she said. “I just got done bowling three games with this arm! Tomorrow I’m cooking a lot!”
Quest also has room for CBC to set up machines for platelet, plasma and double-red cell donations. Dwayne Boling is a type O negative donor and his dad Danny Boling is type O positive. Type O blood is in high demand and both men changed their regular whole blood donations to double red cell donations.
“We both said, ‘Sure’ if that’s what they wanted,” said Danny. “We’re going to my sister’s home in Columbus for Thanksgiving,” said Dwayne, “and mom is cooking the turkey!”
“I’m going to my daughter’s for dinner,” said Edwin Fout from Belle Center as he made a platelet donation. “She always does Thanksgiving. Our other daughter does Christmas and we do Easter.”
The daughter hosting Thanksgiving is Cindee Boyd. Her husband Scott Boyd is known in the West Liberty as the “Iron Man” who survived a horrendous farming accident in August of 2016. In a series of emergency surgeries, he received 108 units of blood, plasma and platelets.
“This all started when my daughter’s husband was in a bad bush hog accident,” said Edwin. “He flat-lined twice on the helicopter and they pumped blood into him. We started as a way of paying that back.”
Neighbors rallied to donate at the “Iron Man” blood drives held in Scott’s name, including donors at Quest Church. Cindee dedicated herself to helping Scott recover, and donating blood.
“She started it and she asked me to donate,” said Edwin. “Then they said I’d be good for platelets, and Cindee started the same time I did.”
Scott’s survival is considered a miracle. “He came back,” said Edwin. “He’s up and around. He’s lost some short-term memory a bit.”
Thanks to the dedication of family, doctors and blood donors, Scott has not missed those family holiday gatherings. This Thanksgiving Day was another to remember.
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Blood donation requirements: Donors are required to provide a photo ID that includes their full name. Past CBC donors are also asked to bring their CBC donor ID card. Donors must be at least 17 years of age (16 years old with parental consent: form available at www.givingblood.org or at CBC branch & blood drive locations), weigh a minimum of 110 pounds (you may have to weigh more, depending on your height), and be in good physical health. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) changes blood donor eligibility guidelines periodically. Individuals with eligibility questions are invited to email [email protected]. Make an appointment at www.DonorTime.com or call (937) 461-3220.
