Donate blood in Jenny Eller's honor this week

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Give to someone you do not know this holiday season. That is the message from the Central California Blood Center this week.

"A few minutes in the chair will actually really help patients in local hospitals," the center's Gordon Halstead said. "You never know whose life you can save with that one donation."

The blood center is hosting a week-long blood drive in honor of Jenny Eller.

The daughter of the center's retired CEO, Dean Eller, Jenny would have turned 50 years old this month.

In the 90s, Jenny fought leukemia, a type of bone marrow and blood cancer. The diagnosis came at the young age of 17, but the kindness of others kept her fighting.

"Donations helped save her life for four years, and it prolonged her life, and it helped her spend four more Christmases, four more birthdays, four more everything you could think of with her family," Halstead said.

The disease ultimately claimed Jenny's life at 21 years old. She was a standout high school catcher who loved the Fresno State softball team and had the potential to play for the Bulldogs before her cancer battle.

Now, if you donate blood this week, you will get a sticker of a softball jersey with Jenny's name on it.

The blood drive is part of a push by Jenny's father. Ever since her passing, he has been on a mission. Not only remembering his daughter taken too soon but also helping others here in the Central Valley.

"The night she died, when I told her I would carry on her work, I believe at that very moment she passed on her passion to me," Dean Eller told Action News in 2017.

You can donate blood in Jenny's name through Saturday at any of the five Central California Blood Centers. On Wednesday, Dean Eller and his family will be at the donor center off of Herndon and Blythe avenues, named after his daughter.

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