Mr. Maynard has been a pharmacist for 27 years, and for all bu one of those years, has worked as a Kmart pharmacist. He has been donating blood since his senior year in high school. “Our high school football coach told us we could get out of practice if we donated blood,” he jokes. “My first time, as a big old football player, I kind of got dizzy and fell out.” But 84 plus pints later, he said, “I've learned to do a lot better.”
In college, Mr. Maynard joined a service fraternity and he has carried the philosophy of serving and helping other with him into his adult life and into his career as a pharmacist.
Because Mr. Maynard has an unusual blood type, CMV-negative and O-negative, his blood can be given to infants in need of surgery. “I began getting calls frequently, and how could anyone not want to help?”
To help the Red Cross reach out to as many blood donors as possible, Mr. Maynard began organizing weekend blood mobiles at the Kmart pharmacy where he worked “because most churches and community organizations host blood drives during the week and people who work can't get there.”
His motivation was simple. He wanted to help people. The same desire brought him to the field of pharmacy. “Doing a blood mobile is a way to give back to the community and a way to get outside of just the retail aspect of the pharmacy.”
Mr. Maynard is quick to point out that he doesn't do this work alone. “It's not just me. It's the technicians and the people who I work with. The floor management is very supportive. The blood drives couldn't happen if there wasn't team work going on here.”
If Mr. Maynard is not working on the day pharmacy hosts the blood drive, he mans the sign-in desk and donates blood. If he is working, he slips out during his lunch break and donates blood.
In his 20 years as a coordinator of blood drives, Mr. Maynard estimates that he has helped collect nearly 1,300 pints of blood - enough to be donated to almost 4,000 people, including victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Except for an uncle for whom he donated blood directly, Mr. Maynard doesn't know any of the children or adults he has helped. He and his wife, Margaret, also a pharmacist, DPh, and a blood donor, have two children of their own, a college-aged daughter, Frankie, who is also a blood donor, and a son, Richard, a high school senior, who has worked the Red Cross sign-in desks and will soon begin to donate blood as well now that he has turned 18.
“What I told my daughter once is that it's not so much about the volume, the gallons, you've helped donate, but the impact you've had on one individual's life,” said Mr. Maynard, “And that gets very emotional. It's just gratifying to know that something you did helped benefit someone else.”
Retail Pharmacy Magazine has a policy of sending True Care honorees a $250 check. Mr. Maynard plans to keep those Little Debbie brownies he is given at the end of each blood donation, but he intends to donate the check to the Red Cross.
“Chip”, a 1972 MCHS graduate, is the son of “Mrs. Ruth” Maynard, a retired kindergarten teacher from Macon County now living in Mt. Juliet, TN.
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