Though some men try to impress their girlfriends with lavish gifts and fancy dinners, one Kitchener, Ont. area man says he was able to win over the woman who would become his wife simply by donating some blood.

When Darcy McFadden was dating his wife Cathy more than 30 years ago, she told him she was a regular blood donor. It was a practice she said she began after her father was in a traffic collision and needed blood to survive.

“My dad had been in a motorcycle accident and they transfused him a number of times,” McFadden told CTV Kitchener. “He would not be around if it wasn’t for blood donors.”

Cathy asked Darcy if he would go donate blood with her. Though Darcy had never donated before, he wanted to make his girlfriend happy, and nervously decided to agree.

“The first time you donate blood, it’s a little nerve-wracking, so it’s not something you do to impress someone else,” he said.

Thirty years later, Darcy is now a regular donor. In fact, he just made his 102nd donation at the Canada Day donor drive at the Canadian Blood Services clinic in Waterloo.

This time, he made it a family affair, bringing along his wife and his two adult sons, who made their sixth and 22nd donations each.

Looking back, Cathy says she was pretty impressed that her husband agreed to begin donating blood for her and says with a smile that the fact that he has kept on donating just might have swayed her to agree to marry him.

“It was definitely a good factor in his favour, absolutely,” she said.

“…I think the bonus point came when he went back again and did it another time.”

With a report from CTV Kitchener’s Todd McAlver