Give blood. Get smart.

September 1, 2009

Blood Centers of the Pacific – the Bay Area’s blood bank – is giving blood donors another reason to roll up their sleeves to save lives.  During the “Give blood. Get smart” promotion in September, all blood donors will be entered to win a brand new Smart Car Passion Coupe.

“This promotion marks the first time our blood center is giving away a gift so large but our shortages are so severe and frequent that we knew we had to do something different,” commented Dr. Nora Hirschler, CEO of San Francisco-based Blood Centers of the Pacific.

Each week, two finalists’ names will be drawn and at the end of the contest, those 10 finalists will each be given a key and invited to a special event at Blood Centers of the Pacific’s (BCP) headquarters in San Francisco.  One lucky blood donor’s key will fit and he or she will walk away with a new smart car.  The other nine finalists will each receive a $100 gas card.

The “Give blood. Get smart” promotion will be advertised through traditional means but the word will also go out through social media channels, including BCP’s growing Facebook Fan Page and Twitter account.

BCP provides volunteer blood donations to more than 40 hospitals throughout the region.  The blood center needs to collect more than 500 pints of blood for patients in need yet of those people eligible to donate, less than 4 percent actually do.  BCP must regularly import 20 percent of its blood from outside the state, simply because not enough people give blood.

To learn more, visit http://www.bloodcenters.org. You can become a BCP Facebook Fan by visiting http://www.facebook.com/bloodcenters.