Memorial Blood Centers Encourages Donating to Remember 9/11

A local organization wants to encourage people to consider donating blood to honor the 18th anniversary Wednesday of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Memorial Blood Centers will host several blood drives around the Twin Cities on Wednesday. The organization urges people to donate blood in remembrance of the victims and first responders who lost their lives in 2001.

The process takes less than an hour and will help replenish a low blood supply.

“The need for blood is every day, and hundreds of thousands of people came out to donate across the country in 2001, September 11th,” said Erica Buege, communications specialist for Memorial Blood Centers. “And the No. 1 reason why people don’t donate blood is because they’ve never been asked. And so, Memorial Blood Centers is asking you now.”

Officials from Memorial Blood Centers say the local supply is dangerously low, due in part to a drop in donations over Labor Day weekend.

Community members are encouraged to make a life-saving donation by giving blood at any of the three drives being held around the metro area on Wednesday, or at any of Memorial Blood Centers’ six metro donor centers:

• IDS Crystal Court – 80 South 8th Street, Minneapolis from 9AM-3PM
• HealthEast, St. Joseph’s Hospital – 69 West Exchange St, St. Paul from 9AM-12:30PM
• Keller Williams Realty Elite – 14711 Martin Drive, Eden Prairie from 12:30PM-3:30PM

You may be eligible to donate if you are:

• In good health
• Free of antibiotics for 24 hours, unless taken daily for skin condition
• Symptom-free for at least three days following a cold or a flu
• 17 years or older – 16 with written parental consent (form available at MBC.ORG)

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