Why I Donate Blood to the Red Cross

Photo taken by author.

Today is World Blood Donor Day.

First established by the World Health Organization in 2005, WBDD, “serves to raise awareness of the need for safe blood and blood products and to thank voluntary, unpaid blood donors for their life-saving gifts of blood.”

Today, it just so happens, is also the day I’m donating blood myself. While I didn’t plan for my appointment to land on WBDD, it’s a cool coincidence that it did.

I’ve been donating blood to the Red Cross ever since I was 17.

I’m not sure what attracted me initially to contributing to this non-profit that has been around since 1881. It may have been a desire to give something essential that wasn’t simply money.

I was just a high schooler after all, working at a Save-A-Lot supermarket in upstate Pennsylvania on the weekends at the time. I wasn’t exactly flush with cash.

It may have been a desire to finally overcome my fear of needles. I’d suffered a crippling syringe-phobia ever since I was five and had to be strapped down to the examination table for a booster shot.

Certainly not a preferred early childhood memory.

Probably it had to do with the idea that the simple action of giving a pint of my blood could help someone’s life, or even several people’s…