The American Red Cross is teaming up with a familiar face to encourage more people to roll up their sleeves and donate blood.
The Red Cross has partnered with HELLO KITTY® as part of an ongoing effort to give blood donors a little
something extra—while helping meet the constant need for lifesaving blood donations.
Nate Russell, with the American Red Cross, spoke with KDWA about the partnership.
“Each month we’re partnering with a different partner. This month it’s HELLO KITTY®. Last month I believe it was Amazon for gift cards, and before that it was Fandango for movie tickets, so it’s just one of the many ways that we kind of work together with our community partners to give back to the people that are donating their time and their blood for this lifesaving cause.”
While incentives and special partnerships can help draw attention to blood drives, Russell says only a small percentage of people actually donate.
“In a given population, only about 3% of folks actually turn out to blood drives, and of those folks, I believe that only about two thirds of them are eligible to donate. So it comes out to about 2% of the population that is going to show up and is able to donate.”
For folks who have never donated, the unknown process of donating blood can sometimes be a barrier.
Russell says the process is fairly straightforward—starting with check-in and a health questionnaire, followed by a few health screenings before the actual donation.
“The first thing that you do is you check in with a friendly volunteer that you know asks you to have you registered. You know, are you making an appointment, or are you walking in? We always recommend downloading the American Red Cross blood donor app. That makes it very quick and easy, just to kind of scan a bar code, and boom, you’re in our system and ready to donate. After that, you go through a health questionnaire where they ask you a series of questions. You know, if you’ve been outside of the country in the last three months. If you’ve recently had a tattoo, all that kind of thing.”
Russell says there are also some common misconceptions about who can donate.
“There’s a lot of misconceptions about donating. You know, used to be that, you know, folks assumed that if they had a tattoo, they couldn’t donate, and that’s not necessarily the case.”
Once donors are cleared, the actual blood donation takes about ten minutes.
“It’s up on the table, and it only takes about 10 minutes or so to extract a pint of blood, or a unit of blood, rather, and then you’re good and you’re on your way.”
The Red Cross also has a blood donor app with a fascinating feature that allows donors to follow their donations and see where they made an impact.
“I’ve talked to folks that have seen where all their different donations have gone to, what states they’ve ended up in, whose lives they’ve saved, all that kind of fun stuff.”
The Red Cross will be at the Minnesota State Fair; stop by their preparedness booth and say hello.
Russell points out other benefits of being a blood donor.
“I know that we’ve got a [Red Cross] preparedness booth set up, but you know I’ll be there at the state fair covering that as well. So that’ll be fun. Additionally, you know, not only are we working with HELLO KITTY® and other sorts of partners like that, but every time you donate blood, you also gain points, so you can exchange for Red Cross swag, hats, backpacks, water bottles, that kind of thing as well.”
For more information, visit RedCross.org/blood for more information about becoming a blood donor and about local community blood drives near you.
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