SPECIAL FOCUS

Candlelight Bell Ringing Ceremony dedicated to Haiti quake victims

The timely, and poignant, quote came via e-mail.

“;Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter,”; said Martin Luther King Jr.

That reminder, urging people to join in donating to the Haiti Earthquake relief fund, arrived in an announcement detailing today's annual Candlelight Bell Ringing Ceremony, which will be dedicated to the Haitian quake victims.

The ringing of the Nagasaki Peace Bell on the Honolulu Hale Civic Grounds will be at 5:30 p.m. today, instead of the Sunday before the holiday honoring the civil rights icon, in a break from a 15-year tradition due to city budget challenges, says the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Coalition-Hawaii & The United Nations Association-Hawaii Division.

The American Red Cross will be at today's ceremony as well as at Monday's parade through Waikiki to accept donations for the devastated Haitian people.

PINT FOR A PINT

Tacoma blood drive finds popular incentive

Some people will do almost anything for a beer — even give blood.

That's what has been going on in Tacoma, Wash., where Cascade Regional Blood Services is trading a pint of beer for every pint of blood that people donate. The program was launched as a fun way to get businesses involved in helping generate blood donations. Perhaps not surprisingly — considering the quality of some of Washington state's micro-brewed beers — the program has been a success and is being expanded, reports the city's News Tribune.

The rules for the Pint-for-a-Pint blood drive are that donors must be at least 21 years old, and must wait at least four hours after they donate before they redeem their beverage. So not only can donors gain a psychological benefit from their actions, now they can have a brewski and feel physically buoyed by it as well.