Graafschap Fire Department to add additional Red Cross Blood Drives

The quarterly blood drives at the Graafschap Fire Department have been very successful so far. Captain Dave Grumney, blood drive coordinator, reached out to the American Red Cross to see what the possibility of changing the schedule from quarterly to bi-monthly. After some discussion, the ARC agreed. This will allow regular donors to fulfill their 56-day rotation. The scheduled dates so far are as follows:

Thursday, January 30^th 10A-4P

Thursday, March 27^th 10A-4P

Thursday, May 29^th 10A-4P

Thursday, July 31^st 10A-4P 

The last quarterly blood drive will be November 21 at the fire station. Previously, GFD has drawn on the marketing from another drive at Central Wesleyan Church. Now, the Graafschap Fire Department will be on their own to draw in donors, with recruitment already beginning for the new schedule.

According to Scot Dinsmor, regional coordinator for the American Red Cross, “When GFD ran under the Central Wesleyan banner, we were able to communicate to all donors affiliated with that drive. Now that they have our own banner, we’ll have to recruit from the ground up. The good news is that the blood drives will be searchable on RedCrossBlood.org using the donors zip code, but they can also use the sponsor code “GraafschapFD”.”

If you are interested in being a servant-drive leader in the community, donating blood is a great way to (almost) effortlessly give back. Also, you can meet your Graafschap Firefighters, take a tour of the station and have any questions answered that you may have about any of our other programs which include smoke detector checks and installation, rental inspections, burn permits, CPR classes, and home safety audits. These programs are a part of the Community Risk Reduction initiative started in 2022 at Graafschap Fire Department.