Small Town Heroes

Years ago when my husband and I decided to move back to my home town I remember telling him that sometimes living in a small town feels like living in a fish bowl, everyone knows your business (or thinks they know) sometimes even before you know it. He laughed at my concerns and reminded me that the town he grew up in wasn’t much larger than mine.

Bill and I have lived here since 1981 and neither of us have ever regretted the move. What makes this community so special? A whole host of things, but for now I want to focus on the people.

My sons play basketball and this past season one of their team mate’s brother (who  plays on the freshman team) was diagnosed with bone cancer. His name is Logan and he is 15 years old.

His parents are good friends of mine and when I asked what I could do to help they mentioned that they would like to have a blood drive in their son’s honor. Tuesday of this week the “Lots of Love for Logan” blood drive was held and it was a great success because of the wonderful people in this community.

Yes, small towns are fish bowls but when needs arise there is no better place to be than right here in this tiny town in the middle of south central Kentucky.

Big city folks sometimes underestimate the power of the people who dot the country side. When I called the Red Cross workers in Lousiville and told the gentleman there that we wanted to host a blood drive he said, “How many do you think you will have donate?” I replied, “At least one hundred, maybe more.”

There was a long pause.

“I don’t want to argue with you miss, but we have had blood drives in your county before and you will be lucky to get 50 people there.”

They set our goal at 50 and brought a few extra bags, just in case.

We had 50 donors before 4 o’clock and the drive just started at 12!  To make a long story short they ran out of bags and we had to take names and phone numbers of people who came so we can invite them when we hold the next one. If they had brought enough bags (dare I say I told you so!) we would have had about 150 donors!

So let me say it loud and clear, SMALL TOWNS ROCK!  Some of the kindest, sweetest, people in the world live right here in my little corner of the world and I am so very proud to call them friends and neighbors!

The next time there is a blood drive in your community, give the gift of life and tell them Logan sent you!  He’s certainly inspired a lot of people around here to donate blood and there are lots of kids (and adults) out there who need us to take a few moments out of our day and donate.