The mission of the Red Cross is to provide hospitals, patients and communities with the safest, most reliable, most cost-effective blood, plasma and tissue services through voluntary donations. Our blood drives provide the donors.

On behalf of the Red Cross and everyone who has found themselves in need of blood, I thank you for your generous lifesaving blood donation. I invite everyone to experience the joy of true heroism - be a blood donor!

-Charlie Shikany

The next Incarnate Word Blood Drive is Saturday, May 12, 2012

There are two kinds of blood drive volunteers: the donors and the workers. The donors need no special skills; they only need the desire to help their fellow man by spending one hour of their time in donating a pint of their blood. It costs nothing but could save someone's life. The human body replaces all components of the donation in less than a month.

The workers include phone callers, cookie bakers, truck off-loaders and loaders, furniture movers, registration desk workers, canteen workers, donation facilitators, and a clown. Except for the clown, little special training is needed. Training is done on the job. Over 150 people have volunteered to be workers.

While we have a large base of volunteers (over 450 different donors in the past two years and 150 workers) the need is so great that there is never enough (only 5% of the medically eligible donors actually give). DO THE RIGHT THING AND BECOME PART OF THE BLOOD DRIVE AS A DONOR if medically possible or at least as a worker.