SAN ANTONIO – Needles are far from Riley Hammond’s favorite thing in the world.
“You know, the poke is not fun,” she said as she started to get up from a chair inside a blood donation bus. “But ultimately, I know that this gift is helping others”.
Hammond is one of many people who came out to Chicken N Pickle on Sunday for a blood drive aimed specifically at helping pediatric cancer patients.
South Texas Blood and Tissue partnered with the nonprofit ‘Big Love Cancer Care’ to help as many people as possible.
Big Love Cancer Care is named after founder Jessica Phillips’s daughter Brooke, who was diagnosed with Leukemia at 3 years old.
“Brooke, while she walked the halls, while she was an inpatient and wanted to help all the kids around her. She would be getting poked, pricked, and she would hear a baby crying next door and be like, ‘Mom, we need to go and help them’, said Big Love Program Director of San Antonio Amber Woodworth.
“So even while she was going through treatment, she cared about everybody else just as much. And so, Jessica, our founder, saw that and was like, how can we continue this in honor of Brooke after her passing?”
You can donate blood to South Texas Blood and Tissue by appointment or during walk-in hours. For more information, click here.