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Save a life this spring break, donate blood

Blood drive to commemorate life of former softball player Jenny Eller

By Megan Bakker
The Collegian

Dean Eller’s office at the Central California Blood Center is filled with softball memorabilia – bats, balls, pictures and trophies – all featuring his daughter, Jenny Eller.

“Here’s this kid that’s got a bright future, that was basically given a death sentence,” said Eller, who’s currently President and CEO of the blood center. Jenny, a star softball player who was being recruited by multiple division-one colleges, was diagnosed with a violent type of leukemia at 18 years old.

Eller remembers being in the room when Jenny was diagnosed. The doctor told him simply “This type’s a killer.” Out of the patients with the disease, 30 percent die within the first 30 days, and many don’t live past a year.

That was in 1991. Jenny survived for four years, attending Fresno State and playing softball for as long as she could, before dying in 1995.

It’s in his daughter’s memory that Eller, formerly a mortgage banker, along with Fresno State softball coach Margie Wright, started the “Gift of Life” Commemorative Blood Drive in 2000. The drive, now in its sixth year, runs from March 20 to April 22, at all four of the Central California Blood Centers in Fresno, Visalia and Porterville.

Due to Jenny’s chemotherapy, Eller said she was receiving literally hundreds and hundreds of pints of blood over the course of her treatment.

“Every ounce of blood in her body was someone else’s,” said Eller. “She was being kept alive by blood donors.”

Because of this, Jenny became an avid spokesperson for the blood center. The night of her death, Eller promised he would continue her work with the blood center. He quit his 30-year job as a mortgage banker, at first simply continuing as a spokesperson. Eventually he worked his way up to President and CEO in 1999, starting the blood drive shortly after that.

“Our community needs 250 pints of blood every day just to meet our basic needs,” said Eller, which he said does not include accidents or emergencies. Eller said less than five percent of the population donates blood. The goal of the drive is to bring in more than 1,000 new and returning donors.

“Blood is like milk, it has an out-date. It’s only good for 42 days,” said Eller. People can donate blood every 56 days (or every eight weeks), and yet Eller said many only donate once a year, or once every two years.

“If everybody did that [donated every eight weeks], we’d never have a blood shortage,” Eller said.

In his office Eller points to a large framed photo of Jenny, taken during the last game she played in 1992.

Her hair was only an inch or two long, just starting to grow back from the chemotherapy. She played catcher, and in the picture she was blocking someone from sliding into home.

“Doctors forbid her to play in that game,” Eller said. “That game was on Saturday, and she was back in the hospital on Monday for another transfusion.”

Fidgeting with some candy in a bowl on his desk, Eller said even when Jenny couldn’t play softball anymore, she still worked for the blood center, speaking out for the need to donate blood.

“She would always start her speeches by holding out her hands and saying ‘Thank you, for letting me live.’”