The end of the year is also known as the “giving season,” with millions of Americans wrapping up presents to give to loved ones on Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and other holidays during the month of December. However, these gifts aren’t always physical goods.
Many also make financial contributions to charitable causes at year’s end. In fact, 63% of Americans donated to an organization just within the last two weeks of 2016 alone. Many of these groups rely on the flux of last-minute donations to continue their operations throughout the year.
Unfortunately, donations have dipped throughout the pandemic. In a recent Gallup Poll published in May of 2020, only 73% of participants reported donating money to a charitable cause in the previous year.
The pandemic has impacted other types of giving, too. National blood donations have slipped from 18% of survey respondents in 2013 to a mere 13% in 2020, likely due to the mass cancelation of blood drives to the pandemic.
Still, the need for blood continues — especially with the emerging Omicron variant. Blood transfusions remain among the most common medical procedures performed in hospitals. New York’s healthcare system alone requires 1,500 blood donations every day to provide life-sustaining blood to trauma victims, people with cancer, newborn babies and their mothers, and hundreds of others.
Now more than ever, New York Blood Center Enterprises (NYBCe) needs the community’s help to raise critical funds to support our donor recruitment efforts, groundbreaking blood research, and daily operations.
New York Blood Center Enterprises delivers lifesaving products and services to the people that need them most.
NYBCe was the first blood center in the United States to collect COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP) from people who had recovered from the SARS-CoV-2 virus and distribute it to others with the disease. We also created the COVID-19 Research Repository (CRR), which helped scale our CCP program and spearheaded COVID-19 vaccine research and development throughout the pandemic.
Outside of our COVID-19 response efforts, NYBCe continuously works to create a healthier future on not only a local but also a national and international scale.
Every gift helps us deliver blood to more than 75 million patients and over 500 hospitals each year; develop new blood-related products, techniques, and therapies; and provide top-quality transfusion services and highly specialized patient care.
Donations also help us support numerous educational opportunities like the Transfusion Medicine Webinar Fellowship Program, which educate, inspire, and empower those interested in transfusion medicine, cell therapy, and other healthcare-related fields.
NYBCe saves thousands of lives each year — but we cannot do it alone. We rely on donations and financial gifts to help us continue conducting lifesaving research and to collect and distribute blood products throughout the country. These financial gifts make a difference in the lives of our friends and neighbors.
Take Ryan P. (pictured right), for example. Like other 25-year-olds, Ryan thought he was immortal, even as his health began declining rapidly. He kept putting off a visit to his doctor until one day, he went nearly completely blind and deaf.
His doctor ran a few tests and diagnosed Ryan with leukemia, a serious type of blood cancer. The young man was eventually cured, thanks to a bone marrow transplant from his brother, but not before Ryan received between 200-300 units of blood. Grateful for the exceptional medical care, he was also appreciative of all those who made the blood transfusions possible, saying, “Fast forward to now after 99 rounds of chemotherapy and my hair is back; it’s a different color now, but I’m flying again, sailing again. I’m alive because of donations.”
The end of the year is a great time to look back on the challenges we faced over previous months, and an even better time to make plans to support your community in the days ahead. To help make the world a better place, please consider making a year-end financial gift to New York Blood Center Enterprises.
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