Rockford, Il. — The Rock River Valley Blood Center (RRVBC) unveiled their newest Bloodmobile that will replace the original pink bus that is over 20 years old.
To celebrate the new Bloodmobile, RRVBC invited staff, government leaders, community members, and every single person who donated money for the bus to a grand reveal.
“For us to have buses for 23 and 21 years when the average lifespan for a bus is 10 years. We are going to take very good care of that and make sure people have a long time to donate on it.” said Lisa Entrikin, CEO of the Rock River Valley Blood Center.
The new bus is blue, with a similar design featuring the “Are You My Type?” campaign. Inside, the bus is brighter with more lighting and more spacious with much wider aisles.
“Our buses are iconic, the pink and the green that we currently have people know what they are. So we wanted to add a new color to our fleet.” said Entrikin
She continues saying, “we want the community to get out of it is that this allows people that are in the areas where we don’t have a fixed site to be able to donate blood and really get back to local patients because there is no substitute for blood.”
Mobile blood drives play a large role in RRVBC’s ability to supply enough blood to the 14 hospitals it serves in the region. RRVBC collects more than 30,000 units of blood each year and provides blood products to more than 90,000 patients annually.
“The old busses broke down a lot, there were circumstances where we had to cancel blood drives because the bus wasn’t running.” states Entrikin
Community members are encouraged to schedule an appointment to donate blood if they never have before, and return donors are encouraged to ask friends and family who have never donated before to give blood in support of RRVBC’s initiative to recruit 7,000 new donors in 2023 to fill the local blood supply in honor of the organization’s 70th anniversary.
In closing Entrikin stated, “Without blood donors, we do not have a product to supply for patients. So it’s so important. It’s so easy to do. A blood donation takes less than an hour. And the donation itself is only 10 minutes. So I would strongly encourage people to give it a try if you’ve never done it”
Donors can make appointments online here, walk-ins will also be welcome.