A daughter is honouring her father by organizing a couple of blood donation clinics in Chatham-Kent this week.
Sarah Logan's father, Gerald Gagnier, passed away last Thursday in a London hospital due to complications from an abdominal aneurysm.
According to Logan, he required over 80 units of blood during his stay and if not for donations, her family wouldn't have had as much time with him.
"It was quite a blessing to have those extra weeks," Logan said. "His issue was an abdominal aneurysm that burst and usually when that happens the person doesn't survive. Luckily he was already at the University of Western Hospital so they had the resources and the skills to do a massive blood transfusion. They replaced his blood volume several times."
Logan said it was because of the generosity of others that her father was able to survive longer and her family wanted to repay the community.
Her family organized two blood donor clinics in partnership with the Canadian Blood Services. The first will be at the Spirit of Life Centre in Chatham on Wednesday between 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. The second will be in at the UAW Local 251 building in Wallaceburg from 2:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Thursday.
"It seems like something so trivial when we're healthy to have blood in us all the time," Logan said. "It's not something that we always appreciate as it's something really easy to take for granted. I think it is a very beautiful way to give back."
Logan said she wanted to celebrate her father's life by paying it forward to the community he loved so much.
"He was a very fun and full of life type of guy," Logan said. "He knew a lot of people in Chatham and Wallaceburg. he could walk into a restaurant and if he didn't know someone sitting at a table during the meal, I would be shocked. It would be an anomaly."
Logan said her father had a few businesses in the community, including his mom's company Charron Transport in Chatham. She added people familiar with the area would recall seeing bikes and antiques for sale off the main road in Wallaceburg.
Logan invited family and friends to Gagnier's service this Saturday at Riverview Cemetery in Wallaceburg.