Red Cross honors longest-serving volunteer with memory blood drive

PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) — The local Red Cross chapter is honoring its longest-serving volunteer with a memory blood drive on what would have been her 102nd birthday.

Betty Grenig volunteered with the American Red Cross for 84 years, starting when she was just 17 years old in the late 1930s. “My mother said the military needed socks and I knew how to knit, so she thought it was time for me to start doing something for someone,” she told Arizona’s Family during a 2018 interview.

From California to North Carolina and eventually Phoenix, no matter where Grenig lived, she volunteered. She passed away earlier this year at the age of 101, volunteering up until the very end. “Everybody in my family dies at 85, so I’m living on borrowed time, so I’m trying to make the most of it,” she told us in an earlier interview.

Grenig was also a proud blood donor and donated more than 25 gallons during her lifetime. That’s why the Phoenix and Tucson chapters of the American Red Cross are hosting blood drives Tuesday to honor Grenig’s inspiring life on what would have been her 102nd birthday. Both chapters will host these blood drives simultaneously to see who can collect the most units of blood.

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