In Versailles, residents have taken the idea of civic responsibility to a new level.

Residents and officials have gone to lengths to help Mayor Emerson Fazekas, who suffers from diabetes and has had a kidney transplant and several surgeries, including one to amputate his right leg, since he took office in 1998.

They have offered him rides, prayers and -- on at least two occasions -- kidneys to replace his failing ones.

On Saturday, the borough and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Versailles hope to tap into this generosity by sponsoring a blood drive in honor of the mayor from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the church, located at 10 Center St.

Those interested in donating should call Natalie McBride at 412-862-0996.

Though Mr. Fazekas no longer needs blood transfusions, he received blood in 2006 when his right leg was amputated below the knee.

The church decided to hold the blood drive in his honor to give donors a tangible connection to a beneficiary, said Natalie McBride, one of the church leaders who organized the drive.

Mr. Fazekas was diagnosed with diabetes when he was 9 years old. The disease caused his kidneys to fail, forcing him to go on dialysis in the late 1990s when he was a member of council.

Though dialysis exhausted him, he decided to run for mayor and won.

By then his eyesight also was failing, and he can no longer drive.

Nowadays, Versailles police Chief William Kruczek shuttles him to and from council meetings.

Shortly after he took office in 1998, he had his first kidney transplant but his body began rejecting it. By 2001, he was back on dialysis.

Borough secretary Linda Salzmann said it pained her to see him after dialysis.

"He was just so dragged down, every time he would go it would just seem to make him sicker," she said.

So she told him that she would do whatever she could for him and even offered to give him one of her kidneys.

"Anything I could do I would be glad to,'' she said.

Myra Brown, who grew up with the mayor and is the daughter of council Vice President Pat Brown, said she also offered to donate a kidney. It was their friendship that moved her to make such an offer, she said.

"He would have definitely done it for me," she said.

The mayor graciously refused both offers and he got his second kidney transplant in September of 2005. He was re-elected for the third time two months later.

In the small borough of under 2,000 people, he said it was his likability that got him re-elected even though he was sick.

"I guess they liked me," he said. "They thought I was doing okay ... but that was the people's choice."

In 2006, his toe got infected with gangrene and it had to be removed. The infection then spread to his foot and his leg and after two more surgeries, doctors had amputated his leg below the knee. He worked from home and could not return to council meetings until the spring of 2006.

But the council was accommodating, he said.

Now, he said, the stress of the job takes a toll on him, perhaps more than it would on a healthy person, and that being mayor has turned into a full-time job.

He said he was honored by people's generosity and willingness to help him, but he couldn't fully explain it.

In Versailles, he said, "everybody usually knows everybody."

"Good people, good neighbors," he said.