Dozens from the Newtown community and beyond came together to honor Reed Intermediate School teacher Julie Shull at two different blood drives held earlier this year.

The first blood drive was held on Tuesday, January 7 at Newtown Congregational Church, while the second was held on Monday, February 17 at Reed Intermediate School.

According to Shull’s close friend and blood drive organizer Karin LaBanca, they collected 80 units of blood between the two drives. There were 94 donors overall, with 31 of them being first-time donors.

After originally being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s B-cell lymphoma in 2020, Schull received an autologous stem cell transplant in November 2023. Most recently, she was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) in the summer of 2024. Shull had an allogeneic bone marrow stem cell transplant in January of this year for the MDS. Throughout her treatments, Shull has required frequent transfusions of both blood and platelets.

In turn, LaBanca reached out to American Red Cross to organize the drives. While the donations from the drive don’t go directly to Shull, they go towards people like her who need blood.

Both blood drives were an outpouring of love, with family, friends, teachers, former students, and others excited to participate and show their support.

At the first drive, people listened to Shull’s favorite songs blast from a speaker all day long. Every donor wrote words of encouragement on floral note cards provided by Shull’s previous student Aoife Flanagan and her mom Janet Flanagan. These cards were then delivered to Shull by her dear friend and neighbor Amy DeLoughy. Shull’s other dear friend Neasa Waaler took photos and videos of the donors and sent them to her after the event.

“It was a day of love,” LaBanca said.

Many wanted to donate, but there weren’t enough slots. According to LaBanca, appointments for the first drive filled up within hours. LaBanca reached out to American Red Cross to schedule a second drive weeks later, which was private and just for friends, colleagues, and Newtown residents.

LaBanca worked with Reed Assistant Principal Jenna Connors, Reed teacher and Shull’s longtime friend Jessica Fonovic, along with other Reed staff to organize the February drive.

When LaBanca learned that she’d need to pay a fee to hold the blood drive at Reed, she went to social media and asked for Venmo donations to cover it. In just 24 hours, LaBanca said she received over $1,000.

LaBanca met Jocelyn Hillard, who is the American Red Cross communications director for Red Cross Connecticut and Rhode Island Region, at the drive and presented her with a $1,000 check to cover the expenses.

LaBanca said she felt overjoyed to see the overwhelming support, as she’s known Shull for awhile. One of her daughters, Marguerite, had Shull as a sixth grade teacher, while her other daughter, Anna, worked with Shull’s daughter at Holy Cow. Shull and LaBanca also knew each other through Newtown High School marching band, where Shull’s twins were in marching band and LaBanca’s daughters were in color guard.

As her friend of many years, LaBanca said Shull is the kind of person to find joy in the little things of life; someone who leaves a positive lasting impact on those around her. Organizing the drives, she added, was the least she could do.

“It’s multi-layered, my love and affection for her,” LaBanca said.

To Come Together

Back in November 2023, LaBanca was going through a health situation of her own. While Shull was home from the autologous stem cell transplant, LaBanca was home getting treatment for breast cancer.

Neither of them could travel due to being immunocompromised, which means a person’s immune system isn’t working as well as it should and has a reduced ability to fight infections and other diseases.

According to American Cancer Society, many cancer treatments can lower a person’s white blood cell counts and other cells in their immune system. This means getting sick as a cancer patient would not only make them extremely sick, but it would also disrupt important surgeries or treatment.

So Shull and LaBanca would share stories, talk over the phone, and send jokes over Instagram to lift each other up. At such a sensitive time in their lives, LaBanca said Shull was an endless source of strength to her.

“With all she was going through, the fact that [Shull] was able to encourage me to persist, to keep going, to try to be hopeful … it meant the world to me,” LaBanca said.

Both Shull and LaBanca said it helped having the support of someone who was going through a similar journey as them. While Shull said having a positive attitude can go a long way, she added that there are days where it’s hard to be positive.

This was especially important for LaBanca, who realized Shull would tell her “I hope that you have the best results possible” whenever she went in for a test. LaBanca said that Shull was one of the few people in her life who didn’t tell her “you’ll be fine” or “you got this.”

While she said those sentiments are sweet, LaBanca added that they’re hard to believe when “you don’t really feel like you’ve got anything.”

“The uncertainty of your future, of your life … she keenly knew that you want to hope for the best, but you don’t know that the best will happen,” LaBanca said. “She was never negative, but she was kind and realistic.”

Now weeks away from celebrating one year cancer-free, LaBanca wanted to donate blood in support of Shull and others who need blood. However, LaBanca couldn’t donate blood due to having cancer within the year.

Being physically unable to donate, and because she loved Shull so much, LaBanca said she wanted to get as many people as possible who could donate in her honor. This encouraged LaBanca to reach out to American Red Cross and set up the blood drives.

“I just wanted to do something tangible that showed my love and respect for her,” LaBanca told The Newtown Bee, tearing up.

Ups and Downs

Shull said the only known treatment for MDS is an allogeneic bone marrow stem cell transplant, which she had in January of this year at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. This transplant involved another person’s stem cells being infused into Shull’s cellular system and eventually taking over. At this point, Shull said her stem cells are “100% from her donor.”

Much like the blood drives, Shull said the transplant was a person volunteering to donate something from their body to support an absolute stranger.

She added that she’s eternally grateful to her donor and called the act “beautiful.”

“It kind of restores your faith in humanity that people out there are willing to help people because it’s the right thing to do and they know it could save a life,” Shull said.

After having the stem cell transplant two months ago, Shull said she’s immunocompromised and will be for some time. She is encouraged to isolate, meaning she has to avoid restaurants and heavily populated public places due to her weakened immune system.

In addition, Shull said she is required to wear a mask to protect herself in case she has to go out into public. This is really important because Shull said that when a person receives a stem cell transplant, their childhood immunizations are wiped clean.

She said her immune system is essentially “reset” and that she has to be reimmunized for everything. Not only that, Shull said that she has to wait nine months to start getting vaccinations.

Shull said that it can be quite lonely having to isolate. However, Shull added that technology such as FaceTime and social media help her connect with people despite the physical distance.

She said that she feels very fortunate to have had a great support system throughout her diagnoses and treatments. Seeing so many people come out to the blood drives and support other recipients, Shull said, has been “a wonderful thing.”

People coming out to donate blood is incredibly important, as only three percent of age eligible people are able to donate or donate blood yearly, according to Hillard. She also said that someone in the United States needs blood every two seconds. Many people rely on blood throughout their lives, she said, such as people who have regular transfusions due to blood cancers or people who have experienced trauma through childbirth. Other people rely on blood for emergency reasons. Hillard said that blood takes days to be tested and prepared per FDA regulations. Even then, blood also has a shelf life of only 42 days.

“There are many reasons why people need blood, but it’s most important that we have the blood available on our shelves for our hospitals ... and get that life-saving blood to those who need it,” Hillard said.

People can make an appointment to donate blood at redcrossblood.org. To learn more about the important of blood supply, visit redcrossblood.org/donate-blood/how-to-donate/how-blood-donations-help/blood-needs-blood-supply.

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Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.