When Tony Addotta first signed on to volunteer with the American Red Cross of Western New York, the retired truck driver was looking for something new to utilize his talents. Little did he know that his new volunteer role with the Red Cross would also lead him to the love of his life.
“It was my first volunteer position. Channel 17 had a volunteer fair. I went downtown and there were a lot of different tables. The Red Cross had a sign in table, and I guess five people signed up and I was the only one who showed up the next Monday. Shawn O’Hargan [Regional Market Manager, American Red Cross Blood Services] had her pastries and stuff like that, so I started driving with blood services and you know, it was nice. I was retired, so I was just playing golf and taking naps.”
Seated next to him on a sunny afternoon, Nancy Despard laughed.
“Oh, he’s good at naps!”
That was nearly 17 years ago. Roughly one year after Tony signed on as a volunteer, Nancy found herself in a similar position.
“I actually saw it in the paper to volunteer,” she explains.
“My parents were actually blood donor ambassadors here and then they moved to
Myrtle Beach and did it down there, too. I thought, ‘Oh Mom and Dad did this,
so I can do it, too.’ Then we met at a
blood drive.”
“You came in – he was a usurper. He came in and was supposed
to be getting people to sign up to donate double reds and I’m like, why is this
guy from Buffalo honing in on our drive? So, he didn’t talk much to me,” Nancy
recalls.
With a sly smile, Tony is quick to explain, “I was out in
the hallway, recruiting double reds – that was my job!”
Although it would be months before the pair would ultimately
meet again, Nancy shares that she knew early on there were sparks.
“I love joking around and stuff and I thought, why couldn’t
I have met him before?”
Their shared love of helping others would bring them
together again when Tony, ever the gentleman, volunteered to drive a group of
Red Crossers from Buffalo to the Greater Rochester chapter to tour the West
Henrietta Blood, Platelet and Plasma Donation and Processing Center
“Well, Tony drove the van. And he makes anybody in the
backseat wear a seatbelt.”
Tony interrupts with a big laugh, “Well, yeah! Wherever
they’re sitting!”
“So, he climbs over the backseat, because I’m behind the driver’s
side, to hook up my seatbelt for me.””
“You looked like you needed help!”
“So, we went down to West Henrietta and had lunch, and the
group stopped at a rest stop and when I came out of the restroom, and he was
waiting out there for me. So, he’s walking me out and he said, that he was
membership chairman for the American Legion post and hands me his card for that
and says, ‘Here, give me a call.’ Now, I’m like, not young – I don’t if know
he’s hitting on me. I call my sister, and asked her, do you think he needs a
volunteer there or something? That’s the only thing I could think of that he
would need me to call him. Finally, after a few days, I call him and we’re
talking and that and I realize, I guess he doesn’t want a volunteer! That was
October 2010. We’ve been together ever since.”
In that time, the pair have continued to volunteer with the
Red Cross. Nancy now works to schedule volunteers for blood drives across four
counties within the Buffalo area. Tony serves as a transportation specialist
for biomedical services in the Buffalo district and was one of several
volunteers who drove through an historic and deadly blizzard to ensure that blood products were delivered to area hospitals in December, 2022.
“We were just driving,”
he explains. “That was [Transportation Specialist] Rachel Elzufon Couch’s
leadership. We may have won an award, but it was her leadership that made it
happen. We were just doing our job.”
“The first time I was ever driving with him, I looked at all the blood in the back and I realize, we’re saving people’s lives by doing this,” Nancy remarks. “It was really – it really meant something to me that what we’re doing is really saving people’s lives.”
While his fellow volunteers received the Blood Services Hero award at the 2023 Western New York Real Heroes luncheon, Tony accepted the award while
awaiting open heart surgery at a local hospital with Nancy at his side. Just a
few days prior to the event, doctors discovered a large aneurysm in his aortic
valve.
“I was a walk-in. They couldn’t believe I was a walk-in,” he
explains. “I only went to the hospital because I couldn’t sleep for two days.”
Nancy immediately takes on a more serious tone: “He is a
miracle walking. The doctor said they’d never seen one that big before ever. It
could have broken like that.”
But their playful banter quickly returns.
“Well then It’s a good thing you don’t hit me!”
The couple shares that Tony’s surgery and recovery helped
put things into perspective, both in their personal lives and their roles at
the Red Cross.
“I’m on a crusade,” Tony says. “I stood up one day and said
to the other drivers that I know that sometimes you think this might be
nothing, but all you guys helped me to survive because the blood had to be there,
and it all takes all the people. People can take it for granted and I thanked
them all, because as you know, it’s the blood donated today that helps
tomorrow. I’m one of those people that you’re donating for. It takes a
village.”
That’s the message the couple shares with fellow and
prospective volunteers – and even blood donors alike.
“Sometimes at the end of my drives, I will stop into a blood
drive and tell a blood donor, ‘I just drove hundreds of miles to say thank
you!’ And then it gets everybody laughing. It’s very rewarding. It becomes a
place where you go in now and you get to see your friends. I still have my
naps!”
Nancy agrees, “I tell volunteers, this is the easiest way
that you can save somebody’s life.”
As for their secret to making it work as a couple, Tony says
it’s simple:
“You have to have a sense of humor. It keeps things in
perspective, I think. She has a good soul and a soft heart.”
Meg Rossman, Regional Communications Manager, American Red Cross of Western New York
