Donating blood is a huge way to help your community and the people in it, and to support the stability and preparedness of the medical community across the country. And the beauty of donating blood is that it won't cost you a dime, and you can probably get your donation done during a lunch break of an hour or less. The Red Cross would be delighted to give you cookies for dessert.



Blood donations are essential for maintaining our local blood banks and thus enabling doctors and nurses to continue to save lives. We can not manufacture blood. It has to come from donations. You are definitely preserving the strength and preparedness of your country by showing up at a blood drive and giving up just a bit of this precious substance.

The Red Cross is really the "only game in town" in terms of blood drives, and I can't really recommend giving blood to any other organization. That is, unless your local hospital is doing a blood drive. There are emergency situations, like in New York City after 9/11, where hospitals opened emergency blood drives in an effort to cope with the massive injuries that happened on that day. But hopefully you are giving blood as part of the standard, scheduled, blood bank replenishment program. These events typically happen at schools and community centers, and are run by a team of about a six to twenty Red Cross staff members.

The Red Cross website has a schedule of blood drives scheduled across the country, including hours of operation, addresses and a phone number.

When you give blood, you can actually give four different compounds

- whole blood, which can be donated every 56 days
- platelets, which can be donated as often as every 7 days, but no more than 24 times a year
- plasma, which can be donated every 28 days
- double red cells, which can be donated only every 112 days.

WHO CAN GIVE BLOOD

Unfortunately, not everyone can donate blood, and each kind of donation just listed above has different requirements. Blood donors must be healthy, weigh at least 110 pounds, and be 17 years of age of older. In some states 16 year olds can donate blood, but they have to get parental approval. The Red Cross has a "Student's Guid to Blood Donation" that you should read if you are under 18 and want to donate blood.

To give double red cells, you have a different set of criteria. Men need to be at least 17 years old, healthy, 5'1" or taller, and weigh at least 130 pounds. Women need to be at least 17, 5'5" in height, and weigh at least 150 lbs (more than the men!).

The Red Cross defines healthy as being well enough to perform all normal daily activities. You can even give blood if you have certain serious medical conditions, like diabetes, provided your condition is being treated and is under control.

Continue to What to Expect When You Donate Blood