UC Receives Award for Blood Drive Success

Hoxworth Blood Center and the University of Cincinnati received the School Blood Drive Award this week from the America’s Blood Centers in recognition of last year’s campuswide blood drive. 

The drive on Jan. 13-17, 2014 was the most successful in the university’s history with 1,613 donors, of which 34 percent, or 555 people, were first time donors. Additionally, 12 percent of donors, or 143, were minorities. The drive also was the most successful in Hoxworth’s history.

The blood drive was supported by President Santa Ono, PhD, who actively posted announcements about the drive on Facebook and Twitter and also was a donor himself. The University of Cincinnati Bookstore further supported the effort by helping to purchase sweatshirts for all donors. Since 2003, the university has held 185 blood drives resulting in 21,503 blood products donated. 

"The January 2014 blood drive also came at a very critical time for the blood center.  We had just survived the holidays with the anticipated decline in donations and were faced with dangerously cold and freezing temperatures which led to many blood drive cancellations,” Hoxworth Blood Center Director Ronald Sacher, MD, says. "If not for the success of the January 2014 UC All Campus Blood Drive our blood supply would have been at a critical level.  Thanks to the support of the students, faculty and staff at the University of Cincinnati we were able to meet the needs of patients in the 30 hospitals that we serve.”

The award was accepted by Christiana Beer, 2014-15 UC student body president, and Greg Vehr, UC’s vice president for governmental relations and university communications. 

Also receiving awards this week in support of Hoxworth’s activities were Gold Star Chili, Corporation of the Year Award, and the Cincinnati Comic Expo Blood Drive, Most Creative Blood Drive Award.

Founded in 1962, America’s Blood Centers is North America’s largest network of community-based, independent blood programs. Recognized by the U.S. Congress for its critical work in patient care and disaster preparedness and response, the federation operates more than 600 blood donor centers providing half of the U.S., and a quarter of the Canadian blood supply. Hoxworth Blood Center is a long-standing member of the organization.

Hoxworth Blood Center of the University of Cincinnati is the region’s only blood center. Hoxworth collects more than 80,000 units of blood annually and provides blood products to hospitals in 17 counties of southwestern Ohio, northern Kentucky and southeastern Indiana.