Drive for Five: The Spirit Within

Your scribe has written occasionally in this space about A Stronger Cord. It’s a program founded a decade ago after being rattled to the bones about the Mile High City’s growing homelessness problem. It has become a national problem too.

Anyway, it was impossible to miss all the folks at busy intersections “Flying their signs” and pleading for help. A guy who is profoundly grateful to have weathered rocky times without major damage felt called to help. I want into the Denver Rescue Mission and offered assistance. The one and only Jay Earl Krebs, Mission chaplain at the time, barked my way, “We need somebody to lead the Thursday morning devotion.”

Early in my tenure working with men in the Mission’s “New Life Program” a handsome young dude sitting on the front row, while listening to me espouse the benefits of a strong body contributing to a strong mind, challenged your correspondent, “When in the f#*k are we gonna start working out?” It was the birth of A Stronger Cord and its mission to encourage displaced men to take care of their bodies, build healthy relationships and serve others. ASC believes embracing this spirit will help them build a stronger cord to their families, purpose and communities.

That fit and handsome young man was David Danielson. He and I grew close over the years. Tragically, this wonderful soul died a few years ago in a car accident. David has a twin brother, Dustin. We’ve become buddies.

Dustin was checking in on my medical condition. I was doing the usual and brief explanation, “I need somebody to share their spare and save my life.” The tree-trimming expert who served our country in Afghanistan and is a spitting image of David was intrigued when the conversation got around to Drive for Five’s mission to encourage fit folks 45-60, beyond child-rearing years and looking for ways to give back with significance to consider live organ donation. It fired up the military man within.

“Drive for Five talking about trying to encourage folks to realize what they can share reminds me of the battlefield,” offered the 38-year-old. “We’d be under fire, hunkered down and waiting for the all clear message. It would always be followed with, “We need blood donors for A Positive, O Negative and whatever other blood type for our injured soldiers wounded from the attacks.”

What the tender-hearted chap said next almost had me swerving off the road while heading to the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center for monthly treatments to keep my Amyloidosis issue from rearing its ugly head again. Danielson said, “Whenever we’d hear the call for blood donations, so many soldiers would rush to be the first to step forward and try to save the life of a military brother or sister.”

I couldn’t resist sharing with Dustin, “One of the target demographics for Drive for Five are military veterans and spouses. They understand quite well the spirit of sacrifice of self for the betterment of others.” Drive for Five’s Crissy Perham, Leesa Noonan and Tiff Audesmore , featured in an earlier column “Sistas” are superstar kidney donors. All military spouses in the season of life where donating allows a fit, middle-aged human to leave a lasting legacy. Perham also happens to be a decent swimmer and won two golds and a silver in butterfly at the 1992 Barcelona games. The Iowa native calls donating a kidney, “Far better than gold and silver.”

Danielson and McIntosh had to wrap up their call because the latter entered a parking garage on the medical campus and lost the cell phone connection. The image of Danielson and other soldiers rushing to donate blood to help a fallen comrade kept resonating in the ol’ noggin.

Drive for Five ain’t asking anybody to “rush” into donating an organ. It will never happen. The process is not easy and requires patience, lots of testing and mental fortitude to get from the red zone of consideration to the end zone of donation.

Sacrifice of self for another? It’s the military spirit. It’s the Drive for Five spirit. Is it your spirit? Here’s a good place to start exploring: https://nkr.donorscreen.org/register/now?src=dff