People were actually being sent home from blood donor sites because we’ve raised too much. In one day the American people banded together and donated countless amounts of blood. That’s unity. A group of psychologists in northern California spent hours finding an open airport following the bombing so they could get on a plane and get to New York to volunteer their time as crisis counselors. Sucks for the terrorists that all they did was make stronger the very bond that they were trying to break. My condolences go out to all of those that lost their lives and their loved ones in this tragedy. They didn’t die in vain, they will be remembered.
I just hope those numbers keep steady and that 2 months from now, the people who already donated come back to donate again.
Sadly, according to the news here, it wasn’t that too much blood was donated, but that there were not enough people who could be saved with it. That’s heartbreaking.
I felt so good when I heard that on the news. And it makes me feel better that I haven’t been able to donate yet. When we called on Tuesday, they told my husband that we might want to wait a week or two, since they will need the blood for several weeks to help the victims. I also heard that they have so many volunteers that they had to turn people away.
I went to the blood center to attempt to donate, and to volunteer my time if I could. There simply isn’t enough people qualified to take the blood. The center is booked into October, and people are coming up without an appointment and waiting for hours. And this is just a small satellite office to the main center. They could have taken twice as much blood as they did and still had a line if they had qualified technicians.
In addition to the donors and the excess of volunteers (I didn’t get to help much) a grocery sent fruit, cookies and water; several places provided supper for everyone including pizza and sandwiches; a woman provided massages to everyone; and a home improvement store loaned a warehouse fan to cool the people sitting outside.
Zyada, what you saw at the blood bank is what I saw here in Topeka, Kansas. The day of the bombing I called them and made an appontment for the next day. I spent the morning making chocolate chip cookies as I figured they would need extras. I needn’t have worried. There was a table with bananas and apples from a grocery, plus tons of cookies, powdered donuts, bottled water, etc. While I gave them the cookies a pizza delivery guy brought in three pizzas that someone had paid for, and as HE was leaving another pizza guy brought in six. (Thank you Papa John’s and Glory Days!) Then a guy from a local sandwich shop brought in turkey sandwiches and chips, and someone ELSE delivered burgers from Hardees. We could eat very well, all for just a little thing like giving blood. I hope the workers were getting first shot at the good stuff. They were working their buns off.