Got blood? Can you donate at the blood drive?
Got an hour to save a life? If you have blood flowing through your generous veins, there’s a pretty good chance you’re eligible to donate blood and save up to four lives! It’s all happening at the upcoming blood drive.
Next Saturday, Sept 12, from 9 a.m. to 2 pm, swing by Chadds Ford Elementary to give a pint of blood that can change another person’s life for good.
This isn’t your run-of-the-mill blood drive. What’s the big deal? A young Chadds Ford boy, his family, and a good neighbor make this blood drive extra special.
In 2024, one of our young neighbors, PJ, became very sick and spent about a week in the hospital. While there, he needed several blood transfusions that saved his life. He’s a healthy, young kid and is thriving today, but his experience led neighbor Amanda Kelly to launch a semi-annual blood drive in his honor.
At the time, many neighbors rallied to provide PJ’s family with meals to help them through the tumultuous chapter. Amanda wanted to offer support, but cooking wasn’t really her thing. Instead, she got creative and put her skills to use in a way that felt authentic and useful. She saw how vital donated blood was for PJ and created an opportunity for PJ’s family and neighbors to pay it forward on his behalf.
With help from his family, Amanda coordinated the first blood drive in PJ’s honor in the fall of 2024. It took a bit of coordination the first time around to find a location and ensure it had the right space, temperature, and logistics for the blood drive. The gymnasium at Chadds Ford Elementary proved to be the perfect venue.
PJ’s parents, Meghan and John, invited lots of friends and family to participate in the blood drive. They brought music and activities for kids, and turned the event into a fun annual gathering for everyone who attended. They ditched the quiet drop-in vibe and turned it into an event in its own right, worth attending even if you couldn’t donate blood. Now it’s an annual event, and Amanda calls it “the most fun blood drive you’ll ever go to.”
Getting the first blood drive under her belt made it easy to make it a recurring event. We have a major shortage of donated blood, so Amanda felt it would be pretty easy to host more blood drives and keep the momentum going. Now, she hosts semi-annual blood drives. The fall drive is an annual event energized by PJ’s family and friends, while the spring blood drive serves the community more generally.
Amanda’s son, Graeme, is also a regular volunteer at the canteen during the semi-annual blood drive events. He loves to stock all the snacks and drinks for blood donors. I don’t blame him; that’s the best part! And I love that it’s an event where kids can volunteer their time too (kid volunteer opportunities can be hard to find sometimes).
Good stories travel best from neighbor to neighbor.
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Being a good villager
We all want a good village. But these days, not everyone seems willing to be a good villager. Amanda showed how we can each find our niche and contribute our unique skills and interests to building a good community that cares for one another in myriad ways (even if you’re not the conductor of the meal train). We all have something to offer, and the community needs us to weave that “something” into a durable fabric.
For Amanda, hosting a blood drive just felt like the right thing to do, not only for PJ but for all the neighbors and families who depend on the kindness of strangers to ensure that the blood bank has sufficient stock for those who need it.
“Sometimes we take it for granted,” she said, that the help we need in a crisis will be available. But that’s not necessarily the case unless we all show up and do the “small things that give back.”
That’s true of a regular Tuesday too. I think we’ve taken for granted the value of strong community connections. We’ve forgotten how much collective work it takes to maintain the safety net of neighborliness that gets us all out of a jam from time to time. Without putting in the work, the web of relational and social wealth withers.
Sign up to donate blood
Next Saturday, you can do one small thing to keep spinning the web of community support. If you’re able, sign up to donate blood on Saturday, September 12 between 9 am and 2 pm. There are still about 25 appointments open. It might seem small, but one pint of blood really can save several lives. It’s a small act with serious impact.
If you’re not able to donate, that’s ok too. Amanda says that the biggest lift for the event is recruiting donors. Spread the word and let others know who might be able to fill the slots and be donors for the day. Whether as the coordinator, the blood donor, the promoter, the canteen king, the check-in queen, or filling any other role to make this event a success, it takes a village. And we can all stack our bricks together to build a strong community.
