2nd Dec 07 would indeed be a Red Letter Day in the annals of the Foundation, true to the words, as Blood flowed from the hearts of SPB Fans, their near & dear ones, into life packets, to fulfill their purpose at a later date.

In the initial stages of campaign, there lurked doubts, as to the success of it. Finally the spirit of comradeship prevailed and it was an overwhelming response when many enthusiastic donors presented themselves at the Indian Red Cross Society, Egmore, Chennai to donate blood.

Hats off to Ashok, Venkat, Balaji, Prasanna, Madhumitha, Lakshmi who came along with their friends / relatives / colleagues as well and contributed their might to the success of the event.

The camp became active by 9:30am when around 10 donors had turned up. This was an encouraging sign for things to follow. To start off, our Trustee Ashok had brought with him two big banners – one on the SPB Charitable Foundation and the other on the SPBINDIA website. The first one was displayed on one of the walls of the Hall where blood was being collected from the donors and the other was displayed at the entrance to the Red Cross campus.

Donor after donor filled up forms and were examined by a doctor to confirm fitness to donate blood, then had their blood group confirmed and were paraded into a hall where a part of their being was sucked into life packets, which had the destiny written on it, to save the life of a fellow human being.

As time passed, donors trooped into the venue and finally when it all ended at 1:00pm, the count had risen to 36, three more, than the registered 33. It was a grand success in a way, this being the first camp organized by the Foundation. The Red Cross Society Team and their Chief Doctor too were overwhelmed with the response.

This event proved, to one and all, that a noble cause would always have success attached to it. What it needed was the initiative and the bent to do it.

This camp also gave some of the donors a chance to have their health checked up as part of the process. I, in particular, felt relieved, when my blood pressure was found to be normal, because two weeks back, I was found to have high blood pressure (I was sick at that time) and the check at Red Cross rested my mind. Similarly I found some of the donors turn curious and querying the doctor on some of the aspects related to the check-up before blood donation. It also proved to be a learning experience for such donors.

While the camp was in progress, some of us immersed ourselves in transferring SPB songs from one mobile to another through Bluetooth mode. This was complimented with exciting discussions about our LEGEND’s songs and one could see members singing a few lines of the songs and analyzing the beauty of its rendition.

There was one donor Mr.Narayanan (a friend of Madhumitha) who has a Light Music Orchestra to his credit. A discussion cropped up when he enthusiastically suggested performing small concerts to raise funds for the Foundation when answering to a point raised by our Ashok regarding organizing of activities for fund collection. Ashok suggested that some of the members who were good singers could also take part in the process and even conduct a show as part of the SPB Fans Annual Meet.

The camp finally served as a platform for blood donation – the prime purpose and also for discussions on SPB songs and future course of actions for fund generation.

One felt that such camps should be organized once in 6 months as part of the Foundation’s activities. There should be no doubt that further camps would receive better response, thereby fulfilling one of the objectives of the Foundation.

LET US ALL JOIN FORCES AND TAKE THE FOUNDATION ACTIVITIES FORWARD

The list of donors is given below. Let us salute them all for being there.

It was interesting to note that, apart from the above intended donors, there were a few outsiders who happened to donate blood after seeing the banner put up at the entrance to the Red Cross Camp.