A BLOOD DRIVE ON CHRISTMAS DAY, 2007 at Michigan Community Blood Centers (MCBC) in Grand Rapids, Michigan brought well over 100 Hindu visitors from the Detroit area and Canada, marking the first time MCBC, normally closed for the holiday, ever has conducted a drive on December 25. The drive boosted the holiday season blood supply by 83 pints, and also provided a new cultural experience to Blood Center staff. As their first blood drive ever, it was a new experience for the visitors, too, a group called Devotional Associates of Yogeshwar (DAY), based in the Detroit area. They were taking part in a nationwide DAY blood-drive effort to demonstrate devotion to God and the principles of swadhyay, a global Hindu movement that emphasizes doing good in the world as a way to express and honor the presence of God everywhere and within everyone. Although Hindus do not worship Jesus, Christmas Day was chosen because, according to the originator of swadhyay, Reverend Pandurang Shastriji Athavale, Jesus represented an embodiment of selfless love; DAY devotees who organized the blood-donation campaign decided that the day when Jesus’s birth is celebrated would be an ideal time to try to better understand and express selfless love through acts of giving such as donating blood.

More

© Michigan Community Blood Centers