Shepeard Community Blood Center Needs Donations To Meet Demand
Throughout the year, and often after tragic events, it’s not uncommon to hear of blood donation drives to help the local community. However, the problem is that there is a daily need for blood donations to support patients at local hospitals. According to WJBF, Shepeard Community Blood Center is in major need of blood donations to keep its supply levels up. To meet the demand, Shepeard needs 100 donations each day.
Shepeard needs donors who can provide various blood components to help patients in different ways. Donations of platelets, plasma, and red blood cells are utilized depending on the patient’s needs. Often, once the blood is donated, it quickly goes from the center to patients, sometimes within just a few hours.
Who Can Donate Blood
Most healthy people 16 and older can give blood regularly throughout the year. The human body replaces different parts of blood at different speeds. New plasma and platelets are formed quicker than new red blood cells. Because of this, there are different waiting periods between donations.
If giving whole blood, a person will need to wait eight weeks between donations. For plasma, a donor must wait 28 days, and for platelets, donors can come back after just eight days. With these waiting periods, there are rules to blood donation. A donor can give whole blood up to six times a year. Platelet donors can visit up to 24 times yearly, and plasma donors can give once a month.
What part of the blood a donor can provide depends on your blood type. People with AB blood can give plasma that’s crucial for burn and trauma patients. For cancer treatment, blood types A, B, and O work great for platelet donations.
The machines used at Shepeard Community Blood Center collect the specific parts of blood, taking out exactly what patients need most, whether that’s platelets, plasma, or red blood cells.
Once blood is collected, medical teams carefully test each donation to ensure its safety before being utilized for patient care.
How To Donate Blood
Various organizations host blood drives throughout the Augusta area, and you can participate that way. But, you don’t have to wait for an event. Shepeard Community Blood Center has 5 locations around the CSRA :
- Augusta – 1533 Wrightsboro Road
- Monday – Friday 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
- Saturday 8:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
- Aiken – 353 Fabian Drive
- Tuesday – Saturday 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
- Evans – 4329 Washington Road
- Monday – Friday 8 a.m. – 6 p.m.
- Saturday 8 a.m. – 4 p.m.
- Sunday 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.
- Grovetown – 290 Meridian Drive
- Monday – Friday 7 a.m. – 4 p.m.
- Saturday 8 a.m. – 2 p.m.
- Sunday 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
- Dublin – 122 South Jefferson Street
- Monday – Friday 8:30 a.m. – 4 p.m.
- Saturday 8:30 a.m. – 1 p.m. – THIRD Saturday of each month ONLY
Your blood donation can help save local lives. The donations stay in the community to help those in need.
Before you donate, be sure to check out these blood donation tips from Shepeard Community Blood Center!
About Shepeard Community Blood Center
Shepeard Community Blood Center is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit blood center. They collect, process, and distribute blood and blood products. The donations through Shepeard help provide for 23 hospitals in 30 counties across the Georgia and South Carolina area.
Shepeard Community Blood Center’s first location was opened on October 9, 1978. The original location was a leased building on 12th Street in downtown Augusta. One of the founders was Walter L. Shepeard, and the center was named after him. He was a doctor and chairman of the Department of Medical Technology at the Medical College of Georgia. Shepeard was nationally recognized as a specialist in blood banking and he was devoted to the development of a center in the Augusta area.
The donation center in Aiken wasn’t opened until September 2001, although prior to that, they operated out of a bloodmobile to aid Aiken Regional Medical Centers. A location was also opened in Evans on North Belair Road, but that location relocated to Washington Road in February 2010.
The center now has 5 donation locations throughout the CSRA, and also has bloodmobiles that visit 21 counties within South Carolina and Georgia.
