LEWISTON — Sitting at the United Valley American Red Cross Real Heroes breakfast, being honored for the number of pints of blood his shop’s January blood drives have brought in, John Story says he thought, I could do another.

So he spoke up.

“We just set up today at the breakfast table another event for this fall,” he said later in a phone interview.

Story, the owner of L-A Harley-Davidson, was one of a half-dozen people honored Tuesday at the Ramada Inn for heroics as varied as farming for a soup kitchen to saving a drowning man’s life.

“It’s just a heart-warming event that makes you feel good when you leave,” Executive Director Jennifer Gaylord said.

Her chapter covers Somerset, Oxford, Franklin, Kennebec and Androscoggin counties. A New Heroes Committee helped pull the event together for the first time.

Among those honored:

* Mary Farrar, American Red Cross Community Outreach Real Heroes Award.

Farrar, from Solon, is a longtime volunteer and advocate for victims’ rights. Her brother, William, was murdered in 1974.

“She gives so much back to members of the community and people going through the worst times of their lives,” Gaylord said.

For Farrar, the recognition was a “wow” moment.

“When you do a job, you do it because it’s the right thing to do, you get your own rewards,” she said.  “Sitting in a room full of heroes is very uplifting.”

* Rachel Bennett, Glenn Powers and their son, Nestor, American Red Cross Real Heroes Award for Outstanding Community Service.

The couple use their 2535 Farm in Windsor to grow vegetables and raise meat for the Bread of Life Soup Kitchen in Augusta. In 2011, they donated 450 pounds of vegetables, 50 chickens, 45 turkeys and three 275-pound pigs.

“We don’t deal with hunger as an organization, we deal with disaster, but we hear all the time about how soup kitchens and food panties are struggling for food,” Gaylord said. “(It’s) just a fantastic gift.”

* Sarah Vasquez, American Red Cross Education Real Heroes Award.

An AmeriCorps VISTA member who works with Bates College’s Harward Center for Community Partnerships, Vasquez has “breathed new life” into a successful after-school tutoring program at the Lewiston Public Library, Gaylord said.

The number of students being helped is up.

“She’s just amassed this group of tutors (local college student volunteers),” Gaylord said. “I love that.”

* Michael King and James Avery, American Red Cross Good Samaritan Real Heroes Award.

The best friends saved a Fairfield man after his mower slipped down a bank, fell on top of him and pinned him underwater.

This award might have come closest to the original Real Heroes Awards, Gaylord said, “that sudden act of courage, not thinking about your own safety, but doing the right thing because someone was in danger.”

* John Story, 2012 Blood Services Real Heroes Award.

“Our largest blood drive in the state is the 9/11 memorial drive at the Civic Center in Augusta,” Gaylord said. “It is huge and this year they shot for 350 units and they got 420. For (Story’s) small business to come up with 900 units over just six years, that’s fantastic.”

Story provides the spot, the prizes and the T-shirts for the event, but he said the really “hard, hard work is done by the Mid-Maine Harley Owners Group.”

About 200 people show up each January to give blood. He’s thinking of adding a second drive this year in August or September.

“People like to hear good stories,” Story said. “There’s enough depressing, bad news in the world right now. When people see the other examples of people doing good things they want to be a part of that. Quite frankly, that’s why I accepted the award. There’s a lot of businesses out there that need to give back.”

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