By Patricia Griffiths, Red Cross Volunteer 

“I am feisty!” exclaimed Ken Dale, an 82-year-old Air Force veteran and resident of West Linn, Oregon, as he gets ready to donate his 40th gallon of blood to help others.

Since the age of 18, he donated blood, only pausing while he served on active duty while, or as he quipped, “I prevented WW3 from happening! I was on active duty during the Vietnam War.” With characteristic humor he added, “the closest I got to southeast Asia was the turnaround in Seaside [Oregon]!” He added, “We made faces at Russia!”

That feisty determination and humor also marked his 64 years of donating blood. One of the first times was marked by an event he never forgot. His father had been a blood donor and his inspiration. His father’s high regard for donating blood to help others encouraged Ken Dale to donate. At that time, a donor under the age of 21 needed written parental permission to donate. Although his father had dropped him off at the Red Cross blood donation center, Dale had forgotten to have him sign the release form. Inside the Red Cross donation center, “a young man working for the Red Cross drove me eight miles to my mother to have my release signed. I still remember he had  a green Chevrolet Impala.” He concluded, “That act showed me how valuable every single donation is.”

On the opposite side of the age range, he was relieved when the restriction against giving blood after age 65 was removed. He noted that, “someone recognized that age doesn’t matter anymore!” Proving that point, he clocked more than 12 gallons of blood donated after he turned 65!

Directing his enthusiasm toward rallying other people to donate, he regularly announces at his church when a blood drive will occur. He adds a message to encourage people who, “might not give due to fear of discomfort,” explaining that “the pain is a little bit more than with a flu shot and only lasts a short second…plus you can help three other people with each donation.” He added that there are additional perks to blood donations, food and friendliness. He described a Red Cross worker who occasionally brought muffins to drives  as, “spring-loaded to a smile position.”

In preparation for donating blood, he keeps a strict dietary regimen. “I’m a heavy drinker!” he boasted, “of dihydrogen monoxide – that’s water!” He also added that he likes his sweets, but otherwise eats healthily.

Dale also has preferences for how he donates blood, which is “whole blood.” Whole blood donations utilize all of a person’s blood, but enables a person to give every eight weeks. Other types of blood donations involve siphoning out a specific component of blood, red blood cells, platelets or plasma, and returning the rest of the blood to the donor. Because whole blood donations include all those components, they are especially useful.

On July 25, 2026, Ken Dale will have donated 40 gallons of his own blood!! The volume of each donation is called one unit, which roughly measures one pint. This means that, with eight pints to a gallon, Dale will have made a total of 320 donations! Even more significant is that, with each donation potentially helping three people, he will have potentially helped 960 people!

Throughout the years and gallons of donations, Dale has consistently offered one simple message to people: Donate blood, because, “it’s the right thing to do.”

If you would like to sign up to donate blood, volunteer in other ways, or provide financial support, go to www.redcross.org.