The Indiana University Northwest Alumni board and Student Alumni Association members (SAA) invite the community to give blood and/or join the national bone marrow registry from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 14 in the Moraine Student Center, located on the IU Northwest campus in Gary.
The blood drive and bone marrow registry celebrates the 400-plus emergency workers who, on September 11, 2001, lost their lives while saving others. Donating blood on this day will help the American Red Cross meet its national goal of collecting 10,000 units of blood.
Current statistics report that someone in the U.S. needs donated blood every two seconds and more than 44,000 blood donations are needed daily. A single donated unit of blood can help save up to three lives.
At the event, individuals can also join the “Be the Match” National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) with a simple mouth swab to collect cheek cells and an application process to determine eligibility. Those accepted for the registry can potentially save the life of someone with blood cancers or other life-threatening diseases if found to be a genetic match.
About one in 540 members of the bone marrow registry will go on to donate, the NMDP reports, either by donating bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cells (PBSC).
Walk-ins will be accepted, but those interested in scheduling an appointment to donate blood can visit http://www.redcrossblood.org/make-donation-sponsor, and enter “iun” as the sponsor code. First-time donors will need to create a profile. Returning donors can log-in by entering their e-mail address and date of birth as the default password.
For more information, contact the Office of Alumni Relations at (219) 980-6769.
