Today, the Connecticut Blood Center will be hosting a blood drive on Fairfield Way from 10 a.m until 5 p.m.
University of Connecticut students and faculty members wanting to donate can walk up at any point during their hours of operation to give blood.
The CTBC will also be donating $1 to Connecticut Children’s Hospital for each presenting donor today, according to a press release.
Connecticut Account Manager and Spokesperson Jonathan DeCasanova explained the relationship between Connecticut Childrens and CTBC.
“We partnered with Connecticut Childrens who receive all their blood from CTBC,” DeCasanova said. “We thought the $1 donation would be a great way to say thank you to them.”
This initiative began on April 7 and will continue until April 16. For those 10 days, the team at CTBC will be traveling around Connecticut to collect blood.
“We have done blood drives already at Sacred Heart University, a Dunkin Donuts and at Parkville market. We are also accepting any presenting donors at our donation center in Middletown towards this effort,” DeCasanova said. “Thursday we’ll be at Trinity College, and Friday we’ll be at East Haven high school.”
Now is a better time than ever to donate blood, as the CTBC had to declare a blood emergency based on low inventory. This was the first time the organization ever had to do that.
“We simply don’t have enough supply to reach the demand of hospitals and the patients that they serve,” DeCasanova said. “Our challenges have come about this year as we have separated ourselves a bit from the pandemic and blood demands have skyrocketed, but donations have not.”
Blood donor levels are not only below standard levels in Connecticut, but also nationwide.
The blood donated will go to patients in hospitals across the state, the press release stated. Most are being used for cancer patient treatments.
“People should donate blood because it’s an incredibly easy thing to do, in order to save three lives. As a blood center, we donate each person’s blood into platelets, plasma and blood cells which can go to three different patients,” DeCasanova said.
