Four groups in Clinton County recently received the 2020-21 Community Blood Center Crisis Hero Award of Excellence: Ahresty in Wilmington; Ferno in Wilmington; the SRWW Joint Fire District in Sabina; and the Wilmington Municipal Building.
Also, Wilmington High School will also receive the award because they hosted their regular blood drive in spring 2021.
CBC is recognizing and thanking sponsors who continued to host blood drives during the pandemic with the 2020-2021 Crisis Hero Award of Excellence. The award also recognizes sponsors who helped CBC meet the local and national demand for COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma by sponsoring plasma drives or adding CCP collection to their blood drives.
The early impact of the pandemic on overall blood collection was devastating. By the end of June, 2020 CBC had 268 blood drive cancellations representing a loss of 8,500 units.
In Clinton County (beginning March 20, 2020):
• Ahresty, led by blood drive coordinator Fadi Al-Ghawi, hosts six blood drives per year and never stopped hosting during the pandemic. At their last 8 blood drives, they had 242 donors.
• Ferno, led by blood drive coordinator Stacy Guerra, hosts three blood drives per year and also never stopped during the pandemic; 5 blood drives/101 donors.
• SRWW, led by Chief Chuck Gaskins, hosts six blood drives per year and never stopped hosting during the pandemic; 8 blood drives/251 donors.
• Of the Wilmington Municipal Building and Wilmington High School, the CBC’s Sandy Baur said, “The municipal building came through for us in a huge way. After CMH (Clinton Memorial Hospital) closed their doors to the public, CBC had no place to host blood drives. Wilmington High school graciously allowed us to use their gym from April to July.
“In August, we searched for a new temporary location and the municipal building allowed us to use their community room. We continued our monthly blood drives from August 2020 until April 2021.
“We are now back at CMH in the conference rooms,” she added. “We are extremely grateful to Wilmington High School and the Wilmington Municipal Building for working with us to find a solution during a very challenging time for all of us.”
CMH Regional Health System totaled 76 blood drives with 1,004 donors.
In early April 2020 Community Blood Center became the first blood bank in Ohio to collect and distribute COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma for the treatment of critically ill coronavirus patients. The program expanded rapidly. With the help of donors who had recovered from COVID-19 infection CBC was able to supply the CCP needs of all regional hospitals, ship CCP to hospitals and blood centers in need across the nation, and contribute to the national stockpile of CCP. As demand diminished CBC ended all CCP collection on March 20.
From April 2020 to March 2021 CBC totaled 91 CCP-only plasma drives with the help of 40 sponsors and included CCP collection in 169 mobile blood drives supported by 31 sponsors.
From April 2020 through March 2021 CBC totaled 4,128 CCP donations from 2,007 donors and shipped 9,425 doses. Half of that total, 4,688 doses, went to CBC’s regional hospitals.
