"I've donated blood before. It doesn't take very long. The needle prick is just that, a teeny-tiny, little momentary sting. It won't even make you blink," reports
Carol Doane. "Really, the worst part is sitting through all the questions they ask. Once you've heard them, it's pretty boring."
We wondered why Carol chose to celebrate her birthday by asking her friends to donate blood."My heart is truly vested in
Be The Match, the National Bone Marrow Registry and especially to raise awareness of people of color registering—half my family is of Asian descent. I would be the un-Asian half," Carol noted, and rubbed the inside of her elbow likely in anticipation of the blood donation adventure. "But @
SWBlood sent me a direct message on Twitter and asked if I would spearhead a drive. I am a big believer of accepting the pie on your plate, so I gave them an enthusiastic yes and starting pressing friends and strangers into service."
How many friends have signed up?"I keep checking the
online appointment scheduler and I'm still seeing some open spots, but I'm hoping to fill the day to keep the
Puget Sound Blood Center busy. I want it to be successful for the time their staff invests. My other desire is that it will encourage my friends to pause and think a moment about what their gift does during everyday life or disaster.
"It's just incredible how a simple, simple thing changes the world. It costs you your gas, your time to get to the
center, maybe a little anxiety, but what you give is unmeasurable."
Carol shared pictures she snapped during her last donation that occurred at her office. The Blood-Mobile drove up, parked in front of their building and opened for business treating donors with juice and cookies, rockin' music and friendly, encouraging smiles.
"I like to engage people in conversation and one of the personnel had worked with me previously, so we spent time catching up. I met another phlebotomists and learned she was married to a youth minister and had just returned from a church retreat. She and I had an interesting conversation in a different way. I talk to everybody who enters my circle."
You mentioned three social media circles where you are promoting this event. What others are you using?"Oh, my gosh. I am leveraging everything! I posted on
LinkedIN,
Plancast, created a '
poster' and uploaded it to Twitpic. I'll be writing about it on Blogger, and I'm asking friends to blog about it. I've got a steady chirp of
tweets happening, too.
"We made event pages on local social media spots like
Guerrilla-Media, and national hubs like
Meetup and
Upcoming. We actually have two Facebook pages,
one through my Facebook fan page and another
Facebook event page that the Blood Center set up, which is a lot cleaner than mine. I tend to get too wordy. Oh, and check out my
Schmap! What else..." Carol scanned her open laptop to aid her memory, but before she got distracted with gmail, we asked what happens after the event. Her head bobbed up and a big grin covered her face.
