Pint for a Pound

"1 hour of time + 1 blood donation = your impact on the lives of 7 people in need."

Memorial Blood Centers partnered with Second Harvest Heartland this holiday season for the second annual pint for a pound fundraiser. For every pint of blood donated at Memorial Blood Centers and other blood drives throughout Minnesota they will donate a pound of food to Second Harvest Heartland food shelves in Minnesota and Northwestern Wisconsin. This promotion ran from November 11 to January 11th. Last year Memorial Blood Center donated more than 22,000 pounds of food last year and are hoping to beat that record this year. As of January second they have raised 13,006 pounds of food and are hoping for a lot more. The holiday season is tough especially on food banks and with the current economic standings it has only made things harder. One pound of food can be a life saving gift for any family in the area.

Donating blood is safe, convenient, and only takes about an hour. The blood itself can help three people and the pound of food can feed a family of four, so you can effect as many as seven people with one donation. To donate you must be at least seventeen years of age or sixteen with parental permission. You must weigh at least 110 pounds and be five feet tall. You should eat a good meal in the six hours before donating and have had adequate sleep in the past 24 hours.

Every donation is processed and able to be used within 24 to 48 hours. Blood can not be synthetically made so their is no substitute. Each unit donated can help as many as three people including heart transplant recipients, cancer patients, and accident victims in urgent times of need. The need for blood never goes away but often donors take breaks and cause shortages in summer months and winter holidays so this program is meant to motivate people to come in because it doubles their impact. Every two seconds someone needs blood. Memorial Blood Center has a demand of over 2,700 units of blood a week.

Memorial Blood Center has been saving lives for 60 years. They are the only locally operated nonprofit organization supplying life saving blood and blood components to more than 30 hospital partners throughout Minnesota and Northwestern Wisconsin. Memorial Blood Center is also a national leader in transfusion medicine, operates 11 donor centers, and conducts hundreds of blood drives each month.

Second Harvest Heartland is the largest hunger-relief organization in the upper midwest with a mission of ending hunger through partnerships. Second Harvest Heartland distributes about 50 million pounds of food and grocery products a year to 1,000 member agencies and programs in Minnesota and Western Wisconsin helping many people.

Donating blood can really be helpful and because our community is so close we can all help each other out. If you donate blood your friends may want to donate to. If you are interested in making an appointment to donate blood at a Memorial Blood Center’s donor center, please call:

Twin Cities Metro area:

(651) 332-7000

Northland:

(218) 723-8080

TOLL-FREE

888-GIVE-BLD

Or visit

http://www.memorialbloodcenters.org