Engelhelms (fp) – Helmut Schneider is happy to give everything – but above all large amounts of his blood. The now 77-year-old former kiosk operator from Engelhelms has donated blood 234 times in his life. At the end of August, Bundestag member Michael Brand invited him to Berlin for a tour of the Bundestag.
Schneider hasn’t missed a blood donation appointment since 1979. The now retired Engelhelmser still gives some of his blood at every opportunity to help others, as he himself reports. “I’ve always tried to be a good person. You have to do something for other people too,” the 77-year-old explains proudly. For this attitude and his great voluntary commitment, Schneider has received numerous awards over the course of his life, such as the blood donation badge for almost 200 blood donations at Biebrich Castle in Wiesbaden.
Most recently, on August 29, state parliament member Michael Brand invited him to Berlin to get to know the Bundestag. Schneider used this to motivate the Bundestag member’s office manager to donate: “‘Have you ever donated blood?’ I asked him,” Schneider says. When the office manager said no, he promptly took him to the German Red Cross and donated blood with him.
Even his advanced age is not holding the man from Engelhelms back. Before the Hessian Transfusion Act was changed last year, Schneider would have stopped donating blood on his 73rd birthday in 2020. He then went to Suhl in Thuringia and continued to donate his blood to the German Red Cross. “I took a break for six months, but that didn’t do me any good,” explains the man from Engelhelms, adding: “I started having circulatory problems and everything. My body was just too used to donating blood.”
Schneider started donating blood as a young man in the German army. Back then, soldiers not only received a day’s special leave for donating blood, but also a month’s supply of food stamps. “We were always able to go to the canteen,” Schneider remembers, adding: “We were also praised by the whole company. That was a great honor.”
