Writer - Miranda Little
Photos Provided By - Miranda Little and Kim Wohlwend This past week on January 21st, 2021, Key Club teamed up with the American Red Cross and hosted a blood drive here in Le Roy. Donors of all ages, shapes, and sizes came out to donate during these difficult times and our workers and volunteers could not be more proud; because of this, we in Key Club and The Paw Print Newspaper felt it necessary to share with the community just how important it is to be donating at this time. We hope that spreading awareness about this will promote more people to donate to a drive or find other ways to support hospitals both locally and nationally. Listed below are some of the many reasons you should be giving blood right now: 1) It Can Save Lives Every year, there are thousands of car accidents, cancer patients, trauma victims, and others who go through terrible tragedies that do not have issues that can simply be solved by bandages or medicine. Many people need blood transfusions to get through these life-or-death situations. A shortage of donated blood could determine if someone lives or dies every day. Hospitals are only able to save people's lives through donations of blood. 2) Less Than 10% Of Possible Donors Donate While there are many regulations on who can and cannot donate blood, less than 10% of people who can donate blood actually donate. This does not take into account what types of blood those donors have. Blood types such as AB and B are some of the rarest blood types, meaning there is always a risk for hospital patients with those blood types. More donors reduces unwanted risk for those patients. 3) A Donation Takes Only One Hour Although the idea of giving blood does sound like a tedious task, it only takes around one hour for the entire process. Donors will answer questions, take a quick blood test, be prepared to give blood, before finally giving blood all under one hour. Certain blood donation services make this process even faster by using online questionnaires to let donors answer required questions before ever showing up for their appointment. This one hour experience will usually result in one pint of blood being donated. 4) COVID Antibodies Are Vital Now During this global pandemic, many blood donations centers were shut down for the first few weeks of quarantine and some still are; however, hospitals and research centers need your blood now more than ever with COVID being spread. While blood donation centers will not test you for COVID, anyone who has recently recovered from COVID is being requested to donate blood. Antibodies are formed in a person's blood after recovering from COVID that help that person avoid getting COVID again within a short time period. That time period is when it is most vital to give blood to help hospitals and research centers save lives. While the idea of going out in such a short amount of time after having COVID does not sound particularly inviting, you could be saving possibly thousands upon millions of lives. These are not the only reasons you should be giving blood. There are many professional resources out there from agencies and organizations to help people understand why these medical practices are important. If you are interested in learning more about the blood donation process or helping out during this pandemic, feel free to browse the World Health Organization (WHO) webpage as well as the American Red Cross webpage to find more information. Please be on the lookout for future events to help our community as we move into the future. We wanted to give a quick thank you to our workers, volunteers, and donors at the Key Club Blood Drive last week and we hope to see you all again soon!
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