Blood drive aims to restore sagging summer supply

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Forty-four people showed up to donate blood at the Riverdale Temple, in the Reform synagogue’s first-ever blood drive intended to help cover blood-supply shortages typical for August, although organizers had expected upward of 100 donors.

The temple’s rabbi, Thomas Gardner, who led the Aug. 15 drive by donating blood, said “it’s really an easy thing to do.”

“It doesn’t hurt very much. It’s two minutes out of your day and you could be saving someone’s life,” the rabbi said.

Blood supplies tend to drop to their lowest levels of the year in August, with searing temperatures and family vacations drying up donations. The New York Blood Center expected about 100 people to show up at each of the three dozen or so blood drives it held this month, but instead, an average of about 40 people have been coming in.

The center estimated that the drive at Riverdale Temple would draw nearly 120 donors, but instead only 44 people showed up.

“August is always hard,” the center’s director of donor recruitment, Andrea Cefarelli, said in emailed comments. “Blood donations really drop on very hot days. We had a good number of blood drives scheduled, but holidays, family vacations and the high heat really impact donor turnout.”

Paul Wolf, who has been giving blood every six months for the past 40 years, said “it’s just a good thing to do.”

“It’s very easy now, because it’s all computerized and once you’ve done all your tests, you lay on a bed and they a stick a needle in you,” he said. “Take your book and that’s it.”

Another blood donor who has given blood before and also showed up at the Riverdale Temple drive, Martin O’Neill, said he had been receiving emails telling him of shortages in the blood supply.

“Apparently, it’s hard for them to get donations in the summer,” he said. “I … want to give something back.”

Rabbi Gardner is among a group of clerics from different faiths in Riverdale who decided to organize a blood drive. The project required a large air-conditioned space, and Rabbi Gardner offered his synagogue›s spacious lower level to host the drive.

“This is our first year. The first of hopefully many years. But, there is a big shortage of blood right now and we are hoping that we have a lot of people,” he said.

Among the people who are healthy enough to donate blood every year, less than one in 10 do so, according to America›s Blood Centers, the continent’s largest network of independent blood programs. Meanwhile one in seven people entering a hospital need blood, and somebody in the United States needs blood every two seconds, according to the group.

To promote blood donations, the New York Blood Center has joined the “Missing Type” international campaign. Many popular locations in the city, such as the Hard Rock Café in Times Square, Morgan Stanley in Times Square and campuses of the City University of New York, or CUNY, plan to display the letters A, B and O that refer to the four blood types either alone or in combination, in the case of the AB type.

blood drive, Riverdale Temple, Rabbbi Thomas Gardner, New York Blood Center, Lisa Herndon

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