Thanks for Giving: A gift for blood donors
Blood recipient Brennah Payne – Age 10, and today (with Brennah’s artwork for blood donors in the background)
Blood donors will tell you that the best thank you gift they can receive is the knowledge that they helped save a life. A few years ago, a young girl named Brennah Payne prepared beautiful artwork to thank SBC blood donors for helping to save her life. We turned her artwork into cheery thank you cards that we offered to our donors. This year, we followed up with Brennah to see how she is doing. The story about how Brennah has thrived since her recovery is heartwarming, and inspired a special gift for our donors over the Thanksgiving season: a mug featuring Brennah’s artwork for blood donors.
In 2005, when Brennah was only seven years old, she was in a severe car accident: a head-on collision with a semi-trailer. She suffered massive internal abdominal injuries and a broken spine. Brennah was airlifted to Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital (LPCH), where she endured 22 procedures, including nine surgeries and about nine transfusions of plasma and red blood cells. She spent four and a half months at LPCH.
With the help of Stanford Blood Center donors, Brennah is now living life to the fullest, with a bright future ahead of her. She loves music and theater. She sings in a choir, plays the flute, is a junior drum major for her high school band, and is in drama club. She is also an accomplished cross-country runner, a 4.0 student, and student body treasurer — and somehow she still makes time for community service, too.
Mugs featuring Brennah’s artwork: A gift for blood donors to our centers 11/19-11/30
To celebrate Brennah’s life and the blood donors who help people like Brennah every day, if you donate blood at one of our centers (in Menlo Park, Palo Alto, or Mountain View) between Tuesday, 11/19, and Saturday, 11/30, you will receive one of Brennah’s colorful mugs. (Please note we’re closed on Thursday, 11/28. Also, on Friday 11/29, we’re open only for apheresis donors).