FILE: This sign - encouraging people to give blood - was placed at a previous American Red Cross drive in Rockmart.
Blood donors are asked to give from 12:30 to 5:30 p.m. in the Nathan Dean Community Center.
Earline Akins, blood drive coordinator, vividly remembers 9/11 and the outpouring of compassion from local residents who wanted to do something to help the victims of this tragedy.
A blood drive was held and Brent Campbell, her grandson, registered to give at 5:30 p.m. He was finally processed several hours later.
“There was so many people wanting to donate a line formed around the building,” she said.
Akins recalls that many donors volunteered not only to give blood but also sent out for food that could be served as refreshments.
“People were arriving from everywhere wanting to donate,” she said. “Everyone wanted to do something.”
Support poured in from local grocery stores and other businesses that wanted to show their support for America and those injured during the tragedy.
“Senator Nathan Dean and his wife Ann brought food and were giving out American flags,” Akins said.
“This did not surprise me,” she said. “Our community has always responded to need. They still do.”
Tuesday’s blood drive will be sponsored by the William G. England Daylight Lodge #747. They will also serve barbecue to donors.
During an average year, the American Red Cross needs to collect more than 22,000 blood donations each weekday, and about 15,000 donations every weekend.
“There is simply no other way to replenish the supply the blood needs but for the generous donations of people during community blood drives,” said local ARC volunteers.
Every two seconds someone in America needs blood. More than 38,000 donations are needed every day in communities across the United States.
The Southern Region must collect about 1,200 units of blood each weekday to meet the needs of patients in more than 140 hospitals and health care facilities.
Most healthy people, who are at least 17 years old and weight 110 pounds or more, can donate. Blood can be donated every 56 days up to six times a year.
I was a non-donating Jehovah's Witness for 33 years and now a regular Red Cross blood donor with my 'blood buddy' girlfriend.
Jehovah's Witnesses blood transfusion confusion
Jehovah's Witnesses take blood products now in 2012.
They take all fractions of blood.This includes hemoglobin, albumin, clotting factors, cryosupernatant and cryo-poor too, and many, many, others.
If one adds up all the blood fractions the JWs takes, it equals a whole unit of blood. Any, many of these fractions are made from thousands upon thousands of units of donated blood.
Jehovah's Witnesses now accept every fraction of blood except the membrane of the red blood cell.
--
Danny Haszard