WFMY and Red Cross host summer blood drive in Greensboro

WFMY News 2 and the American Red Cross are bringing the station’s annual summer blood drive back to Greensboro on Wednesday, July 22, from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Piedmont Hall at First Horizon Coliseum. Blood donations often fall because of travel, vacations and busy summer schedules, even as patients keep needing transfusions every day.

Only about 3% of age-eligible people in the United States donate blood each year, while the organization supplies about 40% of the nation’s blood and blood components. Someone in the U.S. needs blood every two seconds. Those donations help accident and burn victims, heart surgery and organ transplant patients, and people being treated for cancer or sickle cell disease.

Blood collected in Greensboro can move through the Red Cross network to hospitals and transfusion centers that depend on a steady supply for surgeries, emergency care and ongoing treatment. The Red Cross must collect about 14,000 blood and platelet donations every day for patients at about 2,600 hospitals and transfusion centers nationwide.

Donors can make an appointment by using the sponsor code WFMY when they schedule online. Anyone who gives blood, platelets or AB Elite plasma between July 13 and July 31 will receive a Fandango movie ticket by email, with a value of up to $15 plus fees. Whole blood can be donated every 56 days, up to six times a year.

Piedmont Hall sits inside the Greensboro Complex, and its small dedicated parking lot can fill quickly, so attendees may be sent to nearby main complex lots if needed. First Horizon Coliseum, at 1921 West Gate City Boulevard, is the complex’s 22,000-seat arena.