Blood drive held in Littleton

By John Peters
Editor

The Red Cross is hoping a couple of changes in its Littleton area blood drives will result in more donors.

Ernie Smith, an official with the American Red Cross Mid-Atlantic Regional Blood Services, was on hand Tuesday at a blood drive at Littleton United Methodist Church.

That very location is one of the changes.

Smith said the Red Cross has been holding a couple of blood drives each year at the local fire department. While the volunteers there put in a lot of hours, he said changing locations may help involve more people in the community, and result in more donors.

He said he talked with folks at the Methodist Church, as well as at Enterprise Baptist Church about each location hosting two blood drives a year.

“I met with the deacons of both churches,” he said, and they were receptive to the idea.

In November the first of those new blood drives was held at Enterprise, and Tuesday the second was at Littleton United Methodist.

“This way, each church is only asked to host one every six months, just twice a year,” he said. Yet, that gives the Red Cross a Littleton area blood drive quarterly.

While the final figures weren’t available at press time, three people had donated a pint of blood within the first hour Tuesday, another one was donating, and four others were in line.

“We’re hoping for 30 pints,” Smith said. ‘That’s 35, maybe 40 people.” While that might not sound like a lot, he said that much blood can be hard to come by, and even harder to hold on to.

“One car accident, one trauma, could take all the blood we’ll collect here today,” he said.

That is why Smith is hoping to get more people involved with the quarterly blood drives, and to attract more donors. The next Littleton area blood drive should be in May at Enterprise, he said, with the specific date yet to be released.