The American Red Cross is in need of blood donations before the Holiday season to prevent another blood shortage. There’s significant need for blood during the holidays for patients, hospitals, and the American Red Cross.

Dan Williams is the Executive Director with the American Red Cross serving Minnesota. He said the non-profit just recovered from a nationwide blood shortage back in August of this year, with donations decreasing by 25%.

“We had sort of an unexpected late summer, early fall shortage of blood. We recovered a little bit back from that,” Williams said. It’s really important as we go into the holidays we have people making a plan to donate blood through the holidays.”

Matt Foor, a Biomed Account manager with the American Red Cross, finds businesses wanting to do a blood drives.

“I want to find new businesses that would like to do it. We like to have someone at the business that would be take on a leadership role and that would kind of check donors in and work with me and also get some volunteers to help,” Foor said. “So it’s really about the space, the commitment, and then just a willingness to volunteer and to help pitch in for our mission.”

Foor was also working with volunteers at a recent blood drive at Ashley Home Furniture Mart in Hermantown.

“The need for blood is constant. Everybody should at least try it once,” Foor said. “There’s a huge opportunity there to get more donors that’s what we need.”

Cordelia Swanson, a home furnishings consultant at Ashley Home Furniture Mart, is a long-time blood donor. She gave some helpful advice for people who have never donated blood.

“It really isn’t that bad. All I can say is give it a try. You know, like any giving that you can do it just you feel good about yourself, you know, it’s really a small thing that you can do. They need a lot more blood during the holidays, and people are so busy that they don’t realize that giving the gift of life is the best gift of all.”

On December 19th there’s a blood drive happening at Kenwood Lutheran Church from 12pm through 6pm. Also on December 20th there’s two blood drives happening. One at Altec Inc. from 9am-3pm, and the other at Iron River VFW from 12pm-4pm. Another blood drive happening is December 21st at the American Red Cross Northland Chapter in Duluth from 10am-4pm.

However, for more information about donating blood you can read more here. Also for other stories with the American Red Cross you can read more here.