'Why wait until it's too late': Promoting the importance of donating blood

Hero in You: Promoting blood donation CTV’s Maralee Caruso talks with Emily Kalo from Canadian Blood Services about the challenges of retaining blood donors.

Canadian Blood Services, like so many other organizations, felt the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The number of regular donors dropped by 31,000, leaving Canadian Blood Services with its lowest donor base in a decade.

Emily Kalo is a volunteer with Canadian Blood Services and was tasked promoting blood donations during the pandemic, to try and bring in new people and also keep the existing donors.

“I think the pandemic posed a number of challenges to a number of different community groups and charitable organizations, but Canadian Blood Services were in a unique position because the need for blood was higher than ever. It didn’t change, if anything it only got compounded by the pandemic,” said Kalo.

She said one problem to maneuver was with so many people working from home, they couldn’t set up donation times at offices or attend community events.

“It was a lot harder to encourage people to actually leave their house and to go out in public and donate blood.”

To help encourage people, Kalo said Canadian Blood Services relied on social media, to not only remind them that there is always a need for blood but to show them donating blood was a good reason to leave the house.

“It was a safe way to get out of the house and to kind of have that break, where it could be done in a safe way and you are also contributing to the community.”

Kalo said the reason she volunteers and donates blood is because she knows people, and thinks everyone knows at least one person, who has needed blood in their lifetime.

“I cannot stress the importance of blood donation enough. Like I said before, it doesn’t discriminate…why wait until it’s too late, be proactive, support your fellow Canadians. It really just takes an hour of your time to donate.”

To donate, people can go online or call 1-888-2-DONATE.

- With files from CTV News’ Maralee Caruso