WEST ALEXANDRIA — West Alexandria donor Don Stoner is a landscaper who values working with his hands and practicing the plain living of the Old German Baptist Brethren. He values also his dedication as a platelet and plasma donor, and on Sept. 5 made his milestone 150th lifetime donation at the Dayton Community Blood Center.

“It’s taken me 30 years,” Stoner said. “I started in ’82. My employer gave on a regular basis and he asked me to. I got to working Fullmer’s Landscaping in and around Dayton, so it was just as easy for me to come here (Dayton CBC) to donate, and that’s been about 25 years.”

Stoner is a type O positive donor, the universal donor for Rh positive patients, and he commonly made double red blood cell donations. In 2015 he made the transition to donating platelets and plasma.

Stoner and his wife Amy have three children and eight grandchildren, ranging in age from nine to one. They do a fair share of babysitting for his daughter, a nurse at Kettering Medical Center who has five of the grandchildren.

Don enjoys working outdoors, and considers it part of the Old German Baptist tradition. “My dad was a carpenter,” he said. “At one time probably 70 percent were farmers. Now it’s about 30 percent. They’re in the trades mostly, carpentry, plumbing, electrical.”

A healthy lifestyle has helped him maintain his dedicated donation routine. He reached his milestone with his seventh donation of 2018. “I’ve been blessed,” he said. “Everything’s gone my way.”

Apheresis donations are more time consuming, but Don keeps everything in balance. “The last year or so I found out I could come down on Saturday instead of week days,” he said. “On Saturdays I have more time.”