Rod Fimrite,
British Columbia & Yukon

Rod Fimrite is a dedicated donor and a passionate torch bearer for the blood donation cause. In 1969, his six-year-old daughter haemorrhaged after a tonsillectomy and required an emergency transfusion to save her life, motivating Rod to be a regular donor.In 2012, Rod made his 175th donation before being diagnosed with cancer, making him ineligible to donate blood again. Thankfully, he had passed on his sense of duty to donate blood to his four children.
In February, his son Dennis made his 125th donation. They commemorated the feat by organizing a combined 300-donation milestone party at the Victoria, British Columbia Donor Clinic. Approximately 30 people, including more than 10 first-time donors, attended the celebration and gave blood in response to the Fimrite’s call for donors. Through his ongoing work in the property management company his family runs, Rod continues to use his position in the community to rally support for blood donation.

Tammy Lu,
Alberta

A Health Sciences student at the University of Calgary, Tammy began volunteering with Canadian Blood Services in 2009 while in high school. Tammy volunteers every week at the Calgary clinic as an in-clinic hospitality/donor ambassador and takes additional shifts whenever she can. Described by staff as trustworthy, dedicated and energetic, Tammy has arranged for LifeBuses to pick up groups; will arrange to donate with or accompany new donors she has recruited; and has even gone as far as driving new donors to their appointments.
To date, she has contributed more than 750 hours of volunteer service. Tammy has successfully assisted in training more than 20 new hospitality volunteers; she participates in various campaigns and challenges; and has single-handedly recruited close to 70 new donors.
As a member of the Calgary Youth Committee, she has been involved with the recruitment of nearly 400 new donors and is a youth representative on the Alberta Regional Liaison Committee.

John Busch,
Prairies

John has been a committed donor for nearly half a century. An accountant by trade who only recently retired, John became a donor while living in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan just after leaving high school.
He initially donated whole blood then moved to our plasma program for several years before going on to donating platelets, where John has remained for more than 16 years. He has donated more than 400 times and has demonstrated willingness to participate in all of our programs.
John has been a part of the Canadian Blood Services family throughout our evolution. He is always respectful of fellow donors and employees at the Saskatoon clinic, and epitomizes the ideal donor who models leadership by example.

Matt Saunders,
North/East Ontario & Nunavut

Saunders, we have found not only a blood donor willing to answer our call for help himself, but one who inspires those around him to join the cause.
A student project on blood donation inspired Matt and students to start the “Blood Club”. Wearing customized “Blood Club” t-shirts, the group arranges fun and educational activities to encourage students to donate, such as day-long blood typing events. Every two months Matt, who has donated 82 times himself, can be seen with a group of students in tow taking the LifeBus to the Kingston, Ontario blood donor clinic.
Faced with a work-to-rule action this past school year, Matt still made it possible for his students to continue to participate in the LifeBus. While donations from other schools were lost during this period, Matt encouraged his students to take over the responsibility by rallying donors.

Matt Saunders,
North/East Ontario & Nunavut

In high school teacher MattSaunders, we have found not only a blood donor willing to answer our call for help himself, but one who inspires those around him to join the cause.
A student project on blood donation inspired Matt and students to start the “Blood Club”. Wearing customized “Blood Club” t-shirts, the group arranges fun and educational activities to encourage students to donate, such as day-long blood typing events. Every two months Matt, who has donated 82 times himself, can be seen with a group of students in tow taking the LifeBus to the Kingston, Ontario blood donor clinic.
Faced with a work-to-rule action this past school year, Matt still made it possible for his students to continue to participate in the LifeBus. While donations from other schools were lost during this period, Matt encouraged his students to take over the responsibility by rallying donors.

Douglas Hickey,
Central Ontario

Doug Hickey sees his role as a high school teacher as just that: a role. And like an actor playing a part, he is not afraid to don a costume to help get his message across. At Keswick High School, where he is a Math, Careers and Leadership teacher, Doug can often be seen dressed as different professions to tie into whatever lesson he is teaching. For example, he dresses as a construction worker to show the reasons behind learning a math formula, and for blood donation, he shows up at the school clinics dressed in medical scrubs.
A long-time donor himself, Doug encourages and supports a team of students who champion the school’s twice-yearly donor clinics with the same level of passion and enthusiasm. He asks many of the students to continue donating at the clinics held in the community, and is so successful, alumni return to donate long after they’ve finished high school.

Lindy Brunarski,
Southern Ontario

Lindy Brunarski has dedicated her career to saving lives. She’s a full-time advanced care paramedic in the Niagara region, a part-time paramedic in Haldimand County and a parttime instructor in Niagara College’s paramedic program yet still finds time to donate blood and recruit others to donate blood and sign up with the OneMatch Stem Cell and Marrow Network.
When Lindy’s friend, Shane McCready, was diagnosed with leukemia and was in need of a stem cell transplant she helped organize a OneMatch swab event at Niagara College with a target of signing up 25 registrants, but signed up 10 times that number. Sadly, Shane passed away in October of 2012, but had received over 130 units of blood during his fight, and in honour of him Lindy encouraged blood donations amongst colleagues and has established a Partners for Life commitment in his honour.
Lindy organized a second swab event at Niagara College this year and helped bring a mobile blood clinic back to Thorold, the first one in over 13 years, held in Shane’s honour. She plans on making these two events an annual occurrence.

Jim Lord,
Atlantic

Jim Lord reached an exceptional milestone in 2012. The 61 year-old Bedford, Nova Scotia man was the third person in the country to donate blood and plasma 1,000 times and was the first person in Atlantic Canada to reach the milestone. Jim is a pharmacist but takes time in his schedule to visit the clinic in Halifax every Thursday. His father was a blood donor and Jim has been donating blood since high school. He recruits every opportunity he can, from speaking to his colleagues at work, to promoting blood donation to his pharmacy customers.
Jim takes all the precautions to ensure he is never sick and in perfect health in order to donate blood. He is a dedicated donor and well on his way to reaching 1,100 donations.