The American Red Cross is seeing a drastic shortage of blood donations across the country and wants to encourage everyone to donate that can.
The American Red Cross provides around 40% of the blood hospitals use and 80% of that comes from local donations.
Regional Director of Communications Sherri McKinney says they’re seeing as many as 50,000 more units needed each day.
“The fact is, is that if everyone who could donate blood, who was healthy enough to donate blood could do so, we wouldn't ever have a shortage.”
McKinney says you can find a blood drive near you and register for it on their donor app.
“You can put in your zip code, right? And it will populate with drive anywhere within so many miles of your zip code. And you can actually set that for however willing you are to drive to a blood drive.”
Each donation can help up to three people, and McKinney says a donor can give blood about every two months.
