Community comes together
to honor student, friend

David Poe

Fort Bliss Monitor Staff

Almost 100 Fort Bliss Soldiers and northeast El Pasoans donated blood and blood products during a drive in remembrance of Aiyana Hanson at Josephine P. Barron Elementary School, March 5. Earlier that day, Aiyana, a 9-year-old Barron student who Feb. 22 lost her battle with acute myelomonocytic leukemia, was also remembered during a tree-planting ceremony on the school grounds.  

Aiyana, who’s remembered by her father, Sgt. 1st Class Crispen Hanson, a 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command Soldier, as “a bubbly, bright-eyed and selfless girl,” had been chronicled by many El Paso-area media outlets after she was diagnosed last fall. The third-grader spoke publicly about the importance of blood donation and the March 5 drive was to directly benefit her and her need for O-negative blood products.

According to Christina Maxwell, Barron’s school nurse, with Crispen’s permission, though Aiyana was no longer around, the drive continued as scheduled because her message of helping others was so strong.

“Her dad said let it continue because Aiyana would have wanted it that way,” said Maxwell. “There are many children just like her who need blood products.”

 

 

Crispen said he found those who donated blood for Aiyana over the past few months to be surprised how simple the process can be and felt that those who donated for his daughter will continue to do so even after she was gone.

“I’ve had people call me back and say, ‘I never knew how easy it was to donate platelets, I never knew how easy it was to donate blood and be put on a donor’s list,’” said Hanson. “They realized how easy donation was and how easy it was to get put on a list like that when kids or adults need blood or blood products.”

Between the ways Aiyana had touched northeast El Pasoans and beyond, and in turn, the way the community has returned that love to the Hanson family, Crispen said he wasn’t surprised by the type of turnout he saw at the March 5 drive.

“They all remembered her,” said Hanson. “She was somebody that after you met her one time, you weren’t going to forget her and that’s why you see such a turnout. Just reading her stories and the way she was so brave about telling people and thanking people for the support they gave back to kids with leukemia, I think that’s what got the people out here.”

 

 

 Crispen, a Soldier with almost 20 years of service, said it’s the strength his daughter showed in her most trying moments that will motivate him to not only carry on living a full life, but to be a good father to the rest of his children, and even possibly start a foundation in her name.

“I’ve read in the guestbook for her obituary and one of the things someone wrote was ‘she was more courageous and did more things in nine years than most people could hope to do in 60 to 70 years,’” said Hanson. “That probably made things a lot easier.”

The Friday afternoon blood drive, facilitated by United Blood Services, a national donation organization with field offices in El Paso, eventually ended, but Aiyana’s message carried on. It continues to do so for the approximately 500 school-aged children in El Paso who await blood donation and fight on as Aiyana did. 

“She was about raising awareness for those other kids who are in the hospital doing the same thing she was doing,” said Hanson. “She cared more about other people than herself.”

For more information about blood donation, visit www.militaryblood. dod.mil, or contact your local blood bank to learn how a short visit to a center could literally be the difference between life and death for those in need.