Charitable Donations – The Liquid Kind
/We’re reasonably good at donating to charitable causes. We primarily donate to local food banks (time and money) and causes, Wikipedia (because I refer to it so frequently), National Public Radio (because we listen), National and State Parks (because we visit so often), our local Wetlands Park, and various walking and cycling paths and organizations. We always drop a buck or two in Salvo’s red kettle each time we pass one at Christmastime and we keep a stash of dollar bills in the car console expressly for panhandlers. Our most significant regular donation, however, isn’t monetary at all, it’s the liquid variety – blood.
We use the American Red Cross Blood Donor App which makes it easy and convenient to schedule for the time and place we prefer. It also keeps track of donations, sends reminders, maintains our donor ID and blood type and provides lots of other useful information so we can donate here in Las Vegas or when we’re on the road. We’re allowed to donate whole blood every 56 days / up to 6 times a year. Usually something prevents us donating exactly at 56 days, such as being on the road and not finding a donation center with any availabilty when we’re there, so it usually turns out that we donate more like 4-5 times a year.
When in Las Vegas, we usually opt to donate at a nearby Red Cross Center, but no spots were available for our timeframe, so I ‘shopped around’ a little and found a Bloodmobile location hosted by Fohse, Inc. pretty close to home. We had no idea what Fohse, Inc. did, but we headed out at the appointed time and found the Bloodmobile parked out front. As a sidenote, Fohse, Inc., we found, manufactures LED grow lights for the cannabis industry and hosted the blood drive in conjunction with Green Life Productions and Remedy cannabis companies.
The Bloodmobile is pretty self-contained, but it wobbles a bit when you walk.
Once inside the ‘mobile’, which, by the way, kind of shakes and shudders as people walk around inside, we were greeted by two phlebotomists, Mary and Eddie, whom we knew from previous donations at other locations. On the app, we had completed our ‘Rapid Pass’ questionnaire earlier in the morning which asks a multitude of questions regarding health, disease and exposure issues. After reviewing our IDs and Rapid Pass info, they took our blood pressure, pulse, temperature and then did a finger stick to check iron levels. All was good and we were cleared to donate.
That’s Eddie, the painless phlebotomist.
Mary worked with David. She was painless, too! No Pain, and we still got cookies!
After prepping the vein area with alcohol, the needle stick follows. It’s hardly noticeable when these pros do it and the blood starts flowing immediately down a long plastic tube and collecting in a PVC blood bag.
Steve Marcus, a photojournalist for the Las Vegas Sun, showed up and asked to take photos to document the process for the local newspaper. Hence the reason we actually have a few pix to share with you. We chatted a bit with him while he took photos as our blood pumped away, quickly filling each of our one-pint blood bags. Once the bag is full, five individual vials are filled as well for various tests which need to be performed on the blood before it can be sent to a hospital for patient use.
There was a taco stand setting up as we left. Unfortunately, we were a little too early to take advantage of the free tacos for donors. At 9am, tacos just didn’t seem all that appealing anyway.
Darn… too early for tacos. I’ll bet they were great!
A few things I like about donating…
Once we’ve donated the Red Cross sends email updates telling us when our blood is being processed and finally when and where it is shipped. Ours ended up in Utah.
It helps people. There always seems to be an urgent need for blood, especially O+, universal donors.
Donating a pint of blood automatically accounts for a one-pound weight loss (hallelujah!)
We’re discouraged from any hard work and encouraged to eat “hearty meals” for the rest of the day.
But when we’re asked why we really choose to give blood, our standard answer is always the same: free cookies!