>>16-YEAR-OLD PARENTAL CONSENT FORM

- Help for Haiti -

     Donations for Donations
     Help for Haiti and Home

February 1-3

Donate blood February 1 - 3 at any Kentucky Blood Center location or mobile blood drive and KBC will donate $5 to the Haiti relief efforts.

The funds will be equally divided between the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army.

You’ll make an impact here in Kentucky and in Haiti.

Click here to find a location or to make an appointment.

REPORT FOR DUTY!

Giving blood is a civic duty and it's needed everyday. The WWII generation has sustained the blood supply for decades - but now it's time for you to join the ranks!

Step up - Make the Commitment - and Give Blood starting now - Jan 8 & 9 with WKYT and the Kentucky Blood Center!

Blood Donors will:
 - Save lives in our community
 - Receive a long-sleeve T-shirt
 - Be placed in a drawing for a Wii, Xbox or iTouch!!

To donate blood, you must be at least 17 years-old (16 with parental permission), weigh 110 pounds and be in general good health. Schedule your donation now at any of the four KBC donor centers!

Sponsored by:

Game On!
22^nd Annual Big Blue Crush
Monday, November 16 – Friday, November 20
Kentucky vs. Tennessee

        The need for blood takes no holiday. The annual blood battle between Kentucky and Tennessee was established to help boost blood supplies in both states at a time of year when businesses and organizations are reluctant or unable to hold blood drives.

 Play Hard. Win Big. Bleed Blue.

Final Score
 

3364	3440

Sponsored by

Drawing held for KBC’s Summer Car Giveaway

Lexington, KY - - -The long wait is over, the official drawing was held yesterday and the 2010 Toyota Camry got a new owner today. From May 22 through Sept. 7, 2009, 29,687 blood donors presented to donate blood.  This tremendous number of blood donors helped to keep the blood supply stable throughout the summer.

Of those nearly 30,000 donors, one lucky winner, Lowell Collett, 40, of Pineville (Bell County), Ky. won!  Collett, a State Highway Department (Kentucky Transportation Cabinet) employee in Clay County, traveled to Lexington today to receive the keys to his new car. Collett said, “I started giving blood about two years ago in Manchester [Clay County] and I give every time I can.”

About KBC

KBC needed 3500 blood donors and 3800 of you volunteered – Thank you for your lifesaving donations!

Kentucky Blood Center is out for blood – blue or red. Beginning Mon., Sept. 7 through Fri., Sept. 18, KBC will be ramping up donors for the Governor’s Cup Blood Challenge leading to the Governor’s Cup football game.  KBC hopes to collect 3500 units across the two weeks. 

The Blood Challenge will be at all KBC blood drives and fixed site donation centers. However, donors who give blood at the donor centers will be invited to join the Bleed Blue Club. Bleed Blue Club members are those donors who make and keep the commitment to give blood during all three special events (Governor’s Cup, Big Blue Crush and Big Blue Slam). Bleed Blue Club members will receive an all-weather stadium blanket following the Slam event.  

At every drive and donor center, donors will cast a vote for their favorite team and get a commemorative T-shirt (while supplies last). In addition, there will be daily drawings for tailgating goodies!

Sponsored By

Tailgating Goodies!!

New Location!

Andover Donor Center Opens July 6

Kentucky Blood Center is opening its second Lexington location at 8 a.m. July 6.

The Andover Donor Center is located at 3130 Maple Leaf Drive, Suite 103, in the Andover Shoppes off Man-O-War.

The operating hours of this donor-friendly location will be:

Monday and Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Saturday from 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

2009 Charity Challenge

Charities Competing for Blood Donors

Kentucky charities are competing to win cash by recruiting blood donors during the second annual S&S Tire Blood Donor Charity Challenge May 1-31.

S&S Tire, the title sponsor again this year, will award a total of $15,000 in cash to the top six charities that recruit the most blood donors. This is a $5,000 increase over the amount they committed in the first year.

Also, new this year, the competition is regionalized. There will be a winner and runner-up from three regions: the Lexington, Pikeville and Somerset regions. Winners will receive $3,500 while the three runners-up each will be awarded $1,500.

• Competition rules and the list of counties in each region can be found here.

• See the final standings here.

The deadline for charities to register was April 17.

Kentucky Blood Center officials say recently-approved federal funding will facilitate the opening of a second donor center in Lexington as part of their efforts to meet growing hospital demand for blood.

U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler, D-6th District, announced $238,000 in federal funding for equipment to screen, collect and test blood donations during a recent press conference at the KBC headquarters, 3121 Beaumont Centre Circle.

"Saving a life can be as simple as donating blood," Chandler said. "With this federal money, the new center, and this new testing equipment, we can make the process much better and more efficient--saving many more lives in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and making everyone a little safer."

The funding will support high-tech blood testing, screening and collections equipment that will be utilized in a new, satellite donor center expected to open in July at the Andover Shoppes, 3130 Mapleleaf Dr., said William Reed, KBC President & CEO. 

KBC will be leasing 4,800 square feet of retail space (previously occupied by a home decorating and design store that is relocating) to open the satellite donor center. In its first year of operation, the Andover Blood Donor Center is expected to add an additional 3,000 pints of blood and 1,000 single-donor-platelets to hospital inventories.

Reed said the new donor center is a key element in KBC’s plans to continue increasing the amount of blood products it provides to Kentucky hospitals. KBC must collect seven percent more red blood cells and 27 percent  more single-donor platelets in order to meet growing demand, he said.

Single-donor-platelets are donated with the use of specialized equipment that collects only the needed blood product.

The new donor center will be strategically located near a high percentage of potential blood donors. Because only two out of 100 individuals donate blood, he added, convenient locations are increasingly important. Five new jobs will be created as a result of the donor center.

The Kentucky Blood Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring a safe, adequate blood supply for patients at nearly 70 Kentucky hospitals and clinics in more than 60 counties. In the past year KBC processed and distributed 82,000 red blood cell units and 127,000 blood components in total.

National honor awarded

Toyota: 'Corporation of the Year'

Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky was spotlighted nationally for its commitment to blood donation when it was named Corporation of the Year by America’s Blood Centers March 16 in Washington, D.C. Dan May, a human resources specialist with Toyota who is their blood drive chairperson and a KBC board member, accepted the award at a ceremony there.

The company is renowned worldwide for its focus on efficiency and just-in-time manufacturing. So, when other businesses claim they don’t have time to host a blood drive, the Kentucky Blood Center highlights its most prolific donor group up as an example to follow. 

READ MORE

Sickle Cell Sabbath

The Kentucky Blood Center is adapting a nationally-recognized program that brings African-American churches to the forefront in recruiting needed blood donors.

Sickle Cell Sabbath is an awareness and recruitment program that will bring speakers to African-American churches and develop support for church blood drives. The original program, launched in St. Louis, led to a 60% increase in first-time African-American blood donors.

Quintissa Peake is the official spokesperson for the KBC program. A native of Neon, Kentucky, Quintissa is a graduate of the University of Kentucky and has lived her life with Sickle Cell.

Quintissa and her mother, Rosa Peake (both pictured to the left) have already been advocates for blood donation.

"I'm in it for life," said Rosa.

Churches interested in supporting the program should contact KBC Director of Donor Recruitment Bruce Maples at 859-519-3718.

Sickle cell disease is the most common genetic disease in African-Americans, affecting about one in 400 newborns. Patients with the disease have red blood cells that contain an abnormal type of hemoglobin that causes the normally round, flexible red blood cells to become stiff and sickle-shaped.
 

The sickle cells can't pass through tiny blood vessels, preventing blood from reaching some tissues, resulting in tissue and organ damage, even stroke.

Blood transfusions and bone marrow transplants replace sickle cells with healthy red blood cells. The blood of African-American donors is more likely to be compatible with that of children with the disease.

Children as young as six months with the disease can have a stroke. But regular blood transfusions can help prevent subsequent ones.