Alice Beary is a FishHawk resident and as a nurse, she has been helping those in need for many years, but now Beary is the one who is in need.
In November, Beary was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. OneBlood Florida and the FishHawk community are coming together on Saturday, April 30 to do a blood drive in Beary’s honor.
“It’s amazing,” Beary said. “All the work that everyone in the community is doing to help me is phenomenal.”
John-Michael Elms is a FishHawk resident and advocate for blood donation.
“I have been donating blood for many years, and when we moved to the FishHawk area, I was surprised that there wasn’t a big push for blood donation,” Elms said. “I reached out to Florida OneBlood and connected with Hope Burnhart, and we joined forces to get more people from FishHawk to donate on a regular basis.”
Beary is a neighbor of Elms, and when he found out about her diagnosis, he wanted to help her in any way possible.
“Alice is a wonderful woman, neighbor, nurse, dog lover, mother, grandmother and great grandmother,” Elms said. “Since she has given back to her community through her nursing career, we felt it was time to give back to Alice.”
Burnhart is thankful for Elms’ help in spreading the word of how important it is to donate blood, especially when someone from their community needs it badly like Beary.
“FishHawk is my territory, and John-Michael is my chairperson for the FishHawk area,” Burnhart said. “He helps me with setting up the drives and he also sends out communications to the FishHawk community about when the drives are happening as well as advocates about the importance of blood donations.”
Burnhart and Elms hope the FishHawk community will come out to donate blood for Beary.
“Donating blood is saving lives,” Burnhart said. “Alice truly needs blood and platelets to battle her cancer, so it’s most important to get people from the community to donate blood and platelets during the blood drive on April 30.”
To help donate blood for Beary, attend the blood drive at the Osprey Club, located at 5721 Osprey Ridge Dr. in Lithia, from 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
