Share this information with your affinity groups: your book club, neighborhood HOA and workout buddies. Blood banking research indicates one of the key reasons for not donating blood is “No one ever asked me.”

If all it takes is an invitation for you to donate blood, consider yourself invited now. If you’re reading this, please give thought to donating blood, encouraging your friends and family to donate, and even consider hosting a blood drive. There is an urgent need for blood donors, especially new ones, to give blood soon and ease the worst extended blood shortage in decades.

Why should I donate blood?
Blood transfusion is a frequently performed procedure in many hospitals. An estimated one in seven patients admitted receives a blood transfusion. When the procedures occur so frequently you might give little thought to what would happen if you didn’t have blood for a patient.

A safe and ample blood supply prevents cancellations and delays of surgeries, gives life to premature babies with anemia, and allows a cancer program to support patients undergoing chemotherapy or surgery. Blood transfusions enhance the lives of patients with blood disorders, like sickle cell disease. Blood is one of the vital resources necessary to save patients’ lives. Those lives are in jeopardy if the community blood supply is not enough to meet patients’ needs.

Every donor matters. When you make your appointment to donate blood with Carter BloodCare, invite someone to join you. It might be the first invitation they have received to do so. When they donate, it means there is one more first-time blood donor to help restore the community blood supply, for your patients.

Visit carterbloodcare.org or call or text 800-366-2834 for an appointment.