FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Blood Center Celebrates National Donor Month with Partners

JANUARY, 28 2008, SEATTLE — Puget Sound Blood Center honored outstanding volunteers and introduced a new recruitment program during its annual Partners in Life awards luncheon on Jan. 18.

Volunteer Achievement Awards went to William Elwell, a 300-unit blood donor, and Donald Guzman, a blood donor monitor who last year led Blood Center volunteers in rescheduling whole blood donors during his shift.

Community Service Awards went to Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA), Anne Tiernan and Seattle University (SU). SCCA and its chief nurse executive and vice president of operations, Madeline Buelt, joined the Blood Center in the Patient Safety Initiative, a project that utilized advanced barcode technology to provide a secure stable and reliable way to increase transfusion safety. Tiernan, of the Seattle Federal Executive Board, is the Jackson Federal Building blood drive coordinator who last year put together 15 drives, which registered 480 blood donors. SU increased its blood donation by 44 percent through innovative recruitment methods; drive coordinator Alexandra Davis accepted the award.

Chief Sealth High School won the High School Partnership Campaign Award for registering nearly 75 percent more donors than in the previous year. Betelihem Mulubirhan, the schools Associated Student Body president, accepted the award.

Former Washington governor, Gary Locke, was announced as the Blood Centers 2008-2009 Community Campaign chair and task force leader for the new Perfect Match Program. He then took the stage to tout this latest donor recruitment effort.

The goal of the Perfect Match Program is to recruit more blood and marrow donors from our communities of color, said Locke. This is important to our community, because we need to recruit blood donors and marrow donors that more accurately reflect the ethnic mix of our community we need to have a blood supply and marrow registry that is the same balance in order to insure everyone can receive the best possible care and treatment when needed. Medical technology has shown us that having a perfect match for blood and marrow saves lives.

The luncheons testimonial speaker was Kendra Hogenson, a sickle cell anemia patient who has received blood donations for the past 23 years through the generosity of more than 2,000 donors.

For more information on Partners in Life and Puget Sound Blood Center, please contact Director of Communications Michael Young at 206-292-6589.

About Puget Sound Blood Center
Puget Sound Blood Center is an independent, community-based blood center with a long and unique tradition of blending community volunteerism, medical science and research to improve patients’ lives. Patients with leukemia, cancer, burns, hemophilia and traumatic injuries depend on the breakthrough discoveries made by Blood Center scientists. Internationally recognized as a leader in transfusion medicine, the Blood Center operates the world's largest transfusion service, serves patients in more that 70 hospitals and clinics in 14 Western Washington counties and provides tissue and transplantation support to 185 hospitals across the Northwest.

If you have any questions please contact Michael Young at 206-292-6589 or pager 206-540-6189.

###