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Platelets Across America picks NIH for Maryland donation Alan Whitney, a retired factory worker from Avon Lake, Ohio, visited the NIH blood bank on March 27 to make his Maryland platelet donation as part of his Platelets Across America campaign. In an effort to raise awareness for the need for platelet donations for cancer patients, Whitney’s goal is to donate platelets in all 50 states. Maryland makes the tenth state he’s donated in as part of this self-directed program. Because platelet donors can contribute 24 times each year, Whitney estimates that it will take him just over two years to reach his goal. California, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin also received a visit from Whitney. Another goal of his campaign is to demonstrate the diversity of places to donate blood and platelets and call attention to independent blood banks. NIH’s blood bank drew Whitney’s attention because it’s a unique federal facility within the largest hospital dedicated to conducting clinical research. Whitney began donating whole blood in 1965. He has given more than five gallons of whole blood during his first years as a blood donor before switching to platelets. After giving whole blood the first time, Whitney thought, “I can do more than this.” He contacted his local blood bank and his church and started running blood drives every eight weeks. He continued giving blood, and when his blood bank started performing apheresis in the early 1970s, he started giving platelets. Whitney became an avid platelet donor and has made nearly 600 platelet donations in locations as diverse as Elyria, Ohio; Dallas, Texas; and Sydney, Australia. In 1985, he again decided he could do more and expanded his blood drives to every Saturday and Monday evening. Whitney retired from running blood drives in 2000, a year when he helped collect 2,069 units in his community. In October of 2007, he again thought he could do more and came up with the idea to donate across America. “The reception to the idea has been fantastic. The most wonderful people in the world work at blood banks", he said. Sometimes the blood banks Whitney visits give T-shirts to donors. After wearing them while donating platelets he makes quilts out of them and gives them to hospital cancer units. He even turns his time in blood bank waiting rooms into outreach opportunities. Whitney explains the platelet donation process to the people he meets, and often they change from donating whole blood to platelets. “It’s education, education, education,” he said. Although neither Whitney nor any of his family members or friends have needed blood transfusions, he’s motivated by imagining all the hospital patients who need blood. “I think of the cancer patients, the people going in for surgery, and these people need it. It’s a small thing that I’m able to do. I find that a lot of people don’t donate because they don’t understand it, or they haven’t been asked. I’m going across the country to encourage other people—and ask them—to donate." To learn more or donate platelets, call the blood bank at 301-496-4321. |
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