Blood donations are down but patients continue to need blood every day. Winter storms paired with the cold and flu season severely impacted the ability of donors to give blood. It is important to have an adequate blood supply at all times. When a tragedy occurs, it is the blood already at the hospital that saves lives. With your support, we need to continuously replenish the supply so blood is readily available when needed. It takes up to two and a half days to process, test and distribute each blood donation. We want to encourage African Americans to donate blood due to the limited amount of blood available for African Americans.

All blood types and donation types are needed, with a critical need for platelets and type O blood donations. In emergency situations, when a patient’s blood type isn’t known, doctors reach for type O blood until the patient can be stabilized. Vitalant strives to maintain a 4-day supply of type O blood; currently we are at less than half that amount.