Approximately150 volunteers help make these blood drives possible throughout the year. They serve as greeters, escorts, recovery help, canteen managers and blood labelers. Greeters assist donors when they sign in. After donors finish giving blood, escorts walk the donors to the refreshment area, where recovery helpers make sure they drink enough water to replace the fluid they lost and offer them refreshments before they leave.

[Blood donor Don Johnson of Lincoln, with phlebotomist Chris Van Duse of Peoria, smiles as he donates blood to the Logan County Red Cross.]

At a recent blood drive at the Lincoln Sports Complex, two greeters, two recovery helpers, two escorts, four canteen workers, one bag labeler and three people who helped with the setup were on hand to make the procedure go smoothly for the donors and for the personnel from the Heart of America Blood Region in Peoria, who actually draw and store the blood.

Many donors turn up regularly. "It’s something I think I ought to do," said Norman Newhouse, who donates four or five times a year. Newhouse has a special property in his blood that makes him able to donate to babies.

Angie DeVilder said she likes knowing blood will be there in case she needs it. The blood collected by the Red Cross is made available free of charge, although hospitals do charge a fee for processing and delivering it.

Don Johnson remembers that his father gave blood – he doesn’t quite know how many gallons – and he wants to keep up the tradition. He also noted that only a small percent of people who can give blood actually do so, and wishes more people would donate.

[Blood donors Don Johnson(right) and Jeff Wunderlin of Lincoln, get refreshments after giving blood. Robin Bye of Normal, an Americorps volunteer, pours water.]

"We’ve had several people who have given 20 or 25 gallons over the years," said Fay Stubblefield, office manager at the Logan County Red Cross. She said the Red Cross is the only organization in the county sponsoring blood drives and collects more than 50 percent of all blood donated nationwide.

A well-organized system gets volunteers to help with the two and sometimes three monthly blood drives. Stubblefield calls volunteers to serve in the canteen area, Joan Behle calls volunteers to be escorts and recovery help, and Marilyn Steiger calls the greeters. Co-chairmen of blood services are LaDonna Alexander and Jean McCue.

McCue, Rosemary Schacht, Jan Berger and Virginia Gleason take turns managing the canteen, while Alexander, Marilyn Kasa, Charlotte Gaither and Joe Gaither label the blood bags. Robert Guy and Betty Moriearty distribute posters, and John Ryman transfers supplies to and from the Red Cross office. The towns of Emden, Mount Pulaski and Atlanta manage their own blood drives and recruit their own volunteers.

The Red Cross serves Logan County in other ways as well. Community First Aid and Safety classes, which cover adult cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), child CPR and first aid, are offered each month. The nine-hour classes are usually held on Wednesday and Thursday evenings, but daytime classes can be scheduled if a group makes the request.

Classes are limited to six to 10 persons and usually meet in the Red Cross office. Dan Hemenway at Lincoln College teaches American Red Cross life guarding and other water safety classes. All who successfully complete a class receive certificates.

The Red Cross in Logan County offers these and other services even though it is no longer chartered as a separate chapter and has merged with the Sangamon Valley chapter. As is the case with many organizations today, the Red Cross is consolidating offices, so last November the Logan County chapter agreed not to renew its charter. Much of the administrative work once done here is now handled in Springfield. Other counties that have merged with the Sangamon Valley group are Macoupin, Christian and Montgomery.

The local Red Cross still maintains its office at 125 S. Kickapoo, open from noon until 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Two former Logan County chapter members are now on the Sangamon board: Shirley Dittus of rural Lincoln and Chris Agee of New Holland. Dittus said that although the merger is relatively new, the arrangement seems to be going very well. She added that the Sangamon Valley chapter has been "very complimentary" about the success of the Logan County blood drives.

[Brandon Piercy of Lincoln, studying to be an EMT, prepares to give CPR to a Red Cross Mannequin.]

The traditional services provided by the national organization – getting in touch with servicemen anywhere in the world when there is a family emergency and helping out in disasters – are just as available to Logan County residents as ever, Stubblefield said. Anyone can call the office number – 732-2134 – at any time, and if no one is there the call will be automatically forwarded to Springfield and dispatched to the right person. Dittus said another way to reach the Red Cross, perhaps easier to remember, is to call 1-888-3-HELP NOW.

Logan County volunteers continue their work, whether the chapter headquarters is here or somewhere else.

"The Red Cross is a wonderful organization," said Mary Liesman of Atlanta, a greeter at the recent blood drive. "It helped my brother when he was in service in World War II and it helped my son when he was training to go to Vietnam.

"My father passed away and the Red Cross got my son home for the funeral. My brother was injured and the Red Cross wrote letters home for him. That’s why I volunteer."

City officials, historians and other people interested were among the 25 in attendance at the 7 p.m. meeting. They discussed several topics, including a possible video production, a christening date activity and ideas on how to attract people to historic sites in Lincoln.

After viewing a video from Looking for Lincoln in Decatur, the group discussed at great length creating a video focusing expressly on Abraham Lincoln history in Logan County. They would like to use the video both to draw tourists and to educate visitors once they've come. The group also considered using the video for fund-raising purposes, selling it in highly trafficked places where historic memorabilia is sold, such as at New Salem. Heads nodded as many ideas for the video were put on the floor in the excitement.

Those present continued to brainstorm on ways to bring people into the downtown area. Many of the ideas will be pursued at later dates. The group plans to meet in the future on the last Wednesday of every month at 7 p.m.

For more information on this project, contact Main Street Lincoln at 732-2929.

[Trisha Youngquist]

[Members of a panel on domestic violence who spoke at a seminar Thursday evening are, left to right:
Paramedic John Short, Rev. Glenn Shelton of Second Baptist church, Police Officer Diana Short, Mental Health Specialist Alisin Gosda, domestic abuse survivor Tina Merchant, Sergeant Thomas Rowland, Dayle Eldridge of Health Communities Partnership, and Marcia Stall of Logan Mason Mental Health.]

Tina Merchant, domestic violence survivor and a member of the Domestic Abuse and Violence Task Force of the Healthy Communities Partnership (HCP), explained the process of becoming an abuse victim.

"It starts with verbal abuse, name calling, erosion of your self-confidence. You are told you have to quit work. You are isolated from your family and friends. For me the physical abuse started with pushing, then dragging me by the hair, then punching me. He shaved my head and pushed it in the toilet. He choked me until I was unconscious. He beat me when I was pregnant and when I was holding the children.

"I was a strong person, but he broke me down, little by little. He took away my job, my family, my friends."

Merchant left her abuser and came to Lincoln, but a year and a half later he followed her. She sent him away, but on Valentine’s Day he came back, kicked in the locked door, followed her outside and punched and kicked her unconscious. "If it hadn’t been for my neighbor, he would have killed me," she reported.

Her abuser is now serving 11 years in prison.

Tim Butterfield, one of the Lincoln police officers who was called to the scene, described Merchant as "one of the worst cases I’ve ever seen. We do have a domestic violence problem in Lincoln that we have to do something about," he added. "A lot of these crimes don’t get reported because the abused woman feels it her fault. She’s been broken down so much."

"For years and years there were no laws that covered domestic battery," explained Police Sergeant Thomas Rowland. "The only thing an abuser could be charged with was battery. And it didn’t work. We were getting the same calls over and over again."

The attitude of the general public didn’t help, either. It was, "These are family matters and should stay private," Rowland said. "Once new laws came into effect, things started to change."

Since the passage of the Domestic Violence Act in July of 1990, police not only can but must take action, he said. They can make an arrest, regardless of the wishes of the victim. Previously, victims had to state that they wanted their abusing husband or boyfriend arrested, and many were too frightened or embarrassed to do that.

Also, police must offer the victim information on what her options are, offer to find her a safe place to stay, and offer to transport her for medical treatment. They must also make written reports of all incidents.

"I’d like to have seen this occur long before," Rowland said.

"We try to keep victims from having to testify," she said. "It’s her fault he goes to jail and gets his name in the paper. When he’s out, he’s going to go looking for her and she knows it." She said 90 percent of victims who start to prosecute change their minds within the first 48 hours.

McPheron has worked in Lincoln since August of 1999. "Forty percent of the cases that crossed my desk were domestic violence, and only one out of 10 such cases is reported," she said. "This crime crosses all barriers – cultural, social, financial. And a batterer doesn’t look like a bad guy. He looks like Joe Ordinary."

McPheron said Logan County needs domestic violence shelters. "Where do these victims go in the dead of the night when the blood is fresh and the tears are stinging, with three small children in pajamas? They have no money and no place to live. They are afraid they can’t survive on their own, and they try to convince themselves the abuser will change.

"Abusers never change unless they are forced to change. Abusers convince females that it’s all their fault."

John Short of the Logan County Paramedic Association explained that paramedics must try to convince victims to leave the scene of the violence and get medical treatment, and they must try to determine if the injuries the victim has sustained correlate with the story the abuser tells.

Alison Gosda and Marcia Stoll of Logan-Mason Mental Health discussed the myths about domestic violence and the multiple needs of domestic violence victims. "It takes a community to help in this situation," Stoll said. "The inability to find emotional and financial support is the main reason domestic violence victims return to their abusers.

"They are embarrassed and ashamed, and they think other marriages are the same way. They are also afraid DCFS or some other agency will take their children away from them."

Stoll also pointed to the need for a shelter. "If I could call a police officer and say, ‘Can you take this woman and keep her safe?’ the rest would be history."

Merchant summed up the attitude that abuse victims, and the community, must take to begin solving the problem of domestic violence.

"It’s okay that I was abused," she said, "but it’s not okay to accept it."

[Joan Crabb]