Celebrating the spirit of giving by donating blood

SINGAPORE, 18 DECEMBER 2009 – The festive season is here and with the hundreds of blood donors who turned up at A Truly Magical Christmas blood donation drive, held from 18 December to 20 December 2009.
From 12noon to 6pm at Dhoby Ghaut NEL station, throngs of blood donors arrived at the drive, organised jointly by the Red Cross Humanitarian Network (Singapore Management University Chapter) and Comfort Delgro to donate the gift of life.
Over the next three days, the blood drive hopes aims to recruit 150 first-time donors and collect 750 units of blood to ensure a comfortable level of bloodstocks during the festive period. The target amount can benefit over 2000 individuals who require ready-to-use units of blood for emergency and non-emergency purposes.
Prior to the blood drive, more than 80 student volunteers from Singapore Management University and Anderson Junior College gave flyers at Orchard, Somerset, Dhoby Ghaut and Harbourfront areas to raise awareness of the blood drive. This is in line with the theme for 2009’s A Truly Magical Christmas, which is “Chain of Giving”.
The Singapore Red Cross (SRC) hopes that with such a theme, regular and infrequent blood donors can spread the word around about blood donation. By creating the chain effect of raising awareness and debunking myths about blood donation, the SRC hopes this will encourage more to come forward to give blood.
To pay tribute to the blood donors, caricaturists and photo taking booths were at hand to document the moment of giving. The blood donors were then presented with mementoes of their acts of kindness, reminding them that donating blood is convenient but goes a long way to help others.

SINGAPORE RED CROSS SOCIETY, 18 DECEMBER 2009