By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
As the blood supply remains low the American Red Cross is now dealing with donations being down as people travel for the holidays.
Executive Director for the Greater Kansas City Norhtwest region of the Red Cross JoAnn Woody says now is traditionally the time where blood donations are down.
Woody says it's all about finding a balance between traveling and donating blood.
"Donating blood tends to fall off the radar, it is extremely simple to find a blood drive near you and that's one thing we like to tell folks," Woody tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "If you're traveling, if you're visiting somewhere, look for a blood drive close to you it's very easy, you can go to redcross.org and look for a blood drive or you can even download the blood donor app that Red Cross has."
Woody says with those resources it's easy to not only find blood donation opportunities where you live, but also where you might be traveling this holiday season.
However, over the entire year donations have been good, following down years during the COVID pandemic.
Woody says donations remained steady during the pandemic, thanks to precautions being taken, but are seeing them pick back up again.
"Every so often we'll run into one where the attendance is low and it's just a matter of, we cannot take our eye off the prize and we've got to maintain that vigilance of how we promote them, how we talk about them, and keep that need very much at the forefront of folks consideration," Woody says.
Woody says all blood types need to be donated, the most important being the "universal" O negative and O positive blood.
While a steady flow of returning donors are donating blood, Red Cross officials are also encouraging people who haven't donated before to come and donate.
Woody says donations are getting stronger again following the coronavirus pandemic.
But Woody says they are working hard to encourage more new people to come out and donate, saying it's the new donors they need to find.
"We really need more blood donors who identify as black or African American because of the potential for them to have a unique trait in their blood makeup that makes their donation much more appropriate for individuals fighting sickel cell disease," Woody explains. "And that's just one example of the need for diverse blood donors."
Woody says the Red Cross is always looking for new ways to get into more diverse communities to attract those donors.