Your blood, tissue can be life-savers
Event raises awareness of the need for donations.
By Hollie L. O'Connor | San Antonio Express

Despite the sweltering heat, about 120 people gathered Saturday at Alamo Stadium to don red T-shirts and form a huge “blood drop” in honor of World Blood Donor Day.

The turnout was low compared with last year's 487 participants, but Janice Carpio, public relations manager for the South Texas Blood and Tissue Center, said the event's purpose was not lost.

“Leukemia patients, people awaiting organ transplants, trauma patients and newborns all receive blood donations,” Carpio said. “It's really important we raise awareness so the community comes together on this.”

Carpio said summer is an especially important time to donate blood, because high school students make up 18 percent of blood donations through on-campus blood drives during the school year.

When school lets out for the summer, the amount of blood available to the 100 hospitals the blood center serves can deplete, she said.

Amelia Speer is a blood donor who gives no matter what the season, and has donated more than 50 gallons since 1985.

Blood donation is a family affair for Speer. She donated blood to her ailing mother, and inspired her high school daughter to give as well.

The organization Be the Match, which invited participants at the event to join its registry, urged the community to donate not only blood, but bone marrow and stem cells.

Jon Hudson, a Be the Match recruiter, said only four in 10 people needing transplants receive them. He signed up more than a dozen new donors Saturday, but he's aiming for more.

“We have a long way to go still,” Hudson said.

Javier Santillian was on the registry for eight years before he was matched with a patient, a 5-year-old boy suffering from leukemia. Santillian said the boy is now healthy.

“I was in some discomfort, but nothing compared to what that kid went through,” Santillian said. “He had to go through extensive chemotherapy to kill his sick cells before he could accept my healthy ones.”

Photo: Goldbeck Company photographer Herb Schattenberg photographs people forming a blood drop Saturday June 18, 2011 at Alamo Stadium. About 120 people took part in the event that was part of the South Texas Blood and Tissue Center's (STBTC) celebration of World Blood Donor Day (WBDD). (PHOTO BY EDWARD A. ORNELAS/eaornelas@express-news.net) Photo: Edward A. Ornelas/Express-News, EDWARD A. ORNELAS / © SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS (NFS)