Blood Drive Ministry

This has really been an interesting road for me the past 6 months or so, working to establish a Blood Drive Ministry at our church, in coordination with the American Red Cross.

This past August 26th, was our first official blood drive as a new ministry team. My dear friend, Jolissa and I coordinated it, with the help of many wonderful volunteers. We initially had a goal of 22 pints, but exceeded it by collecting 40! That is over 120 lives that could be saved! What an amazing gift most of us can give, in donating blood.

In all honesty, before coming in contact with my county coordinator, Eric, who recruited me to take on a drive, I had only donated blood two times before in my 37 years... Why? I'm not really sure...mostly, because I hadn't really ever been asked since college. So, here I am now, coordinating blood drives through our church every 2 months!

I feel incredibly blessed to be a part of something so very important. So many of us struggle with what we can do to help others, and here is one example of something that costs nothing except an hour of time. And just one donation has the potential to save three lives! Imagine that: 1 HOUR + 1 PINT = 3 LIVES SAVED! In how many other situations that you can think of, can one hour of your life have such far-reaching impact???

So, here I am, 2 weeks away from our second blood drive this year, to be held on Saturday, October 23rd, from 11am to 5pm at the Grove City Church of the Nazarene. Our goal has now been moved up to 40 pints, but we are shooting for 75! Jolissa and I went down to check out a large goal drive in Fayette county this afternoon. They have a regular goal of 90 pints and it seems to be run like a well-oiled machine. I look forward to the day when our blood drives will run as smoothly and as successfully.

If you are reading this...are in the Columbus, Ohio area...and have blood...might you donate?

You can go to www.redcrossblood.org and use Sponsorcode: grovecitynazarene to sign up!

If you aren't nearby, you can still go to the same website and find a blood drive near you! :-)