Like many other otherwise well-adjusted adults, Max Jardin has a thing about needles.
“I don’t like them,” he said, laughing. “I’m afraid of needles.”
But Jardin’s fear ends where his desire to help others begins.

The 61-year-old Handi-Van driver is a regular at the Blood Bank of Hawaiçi’s Dillingham donor center. Every eight weeks he settles in to one of several recliners, extends his arm, looks away as a nurse painlessly inserts a needle, then squeezes, squeezes, squeezes for someone else’s dear life.
He’s done this more than 60 times over the last several years.
Jardin was at the donor center again today, joining dozens of other donors in heeding the blood bank’s seasonal call for more contributions.
“I just want to do my part and help in any way I can,” Jardin said. “Maybe someone will do the same for me one day — but hopefully not soon!”
While the blood bank needs donations of 200 pints of blood per day to meet the demands of Hawaiçi’s population, the holiday season has traditionally been a difficult time to draw donors because of busy schedules, seasonal cold and flu, and winter break for colleges and high schools (last year, local high school blood drives yielded nearly 4,800 pints of blood).
“People in Hawaiçi have always been wonderful in their response, but there’s always a need for more,” said Blood Bank of Hawaii spokesman Randy Kusaka.
For more on this story, see tomorrow’s Honolulu Advertiser.