The late Thomas Harrington and Tracy Pereira touched countless lives in Little Compton and Westport. Two years after Harrington’s death at age 19, and nine months after Pereira followed, loved ones and colleagues are holding a blood drive to keep their memory alive and help others.

The driver will be held Saturday, May 10, at the Macomber School in Westport. It runs from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., and there are 57 spots open to donors. If more sign up, organizers may hold a second. It will be held two days after the two-year anniversary of Harrington’s untimely passing.

The blood drive’s main organizer is Macomber School counselor and Little Compton resident Elisabeth Harrington, who lost her son on May 8, 2023, after a 10-year battle with Ewing Sarcoma, a form of bone cancer.

It also honors Pereira, a friend and college of Harrington’s who worked alongside her at the school for many years. She was truly “a giver,” Harrington said — known affectionately at the school as Nurse Tracy, she died unexpectedly last August.

“He was a special person,” Harrington said of her son. “And she was just an amazing person as well. She was a giver and she was very supportive to me with Thomas in his final weeks, when he was in hospice.”

Before her own untimely death, Pereira was one of Thomas’s champions, and helped organize several blood drives as he went through seemingly endless treatments for his cancer. He needed many blood transfusions over his years and Pereira helped stage at least three of them — Harrington said it was only right that the upcoming drive honor the memories of both, as each brought light to the world.

“A lot of people feel like, if you can go through the kind of treatment he went through for over 10 years, they can spend a little bit of time having one needle poke and be able to help someone.”

You can sign up for the blood drive here.

You can read more about Thomas and Nurse Tracy here.