Column | Register for April 29 Red Cross blood drive, a great way to do a good turn

Please consider registering for the April 29 blood drive that will be held at the Monroe County Convention Center.

That hyperlink should take you directly to the Red Cross website where you can register.

Running a public service announcement like this means driving a little outside of The Square Beacon’s normal lane.

But Monroe County’s emergency manager Allison Moore said at Friday’s weekly press conference that she is worried about the April 29 date.

Moore said that for the first time since the pandemic-response blood drives started, one of the dates that’s been scheduled for the convention center location might not get every appointment slot filled.

So I figured it was worth amplifying that message: Please consider registering for the April 29 blood drive.

The current messaging from local leaders on the COVID-19 pandemic is: Keep doing what we’ve been doing: Wear a mask, maintain social distance, wash your hands.

Maintaining the pandemic regimen, while waiting for the numbers of vaccinated people to climb and for the daily COVID-19 positive case counts to go back down is tedious. Especially when the raw case numbers are currently so much lower than they were at their peak.

It feels a little bit like waiting at a red light, when it looks like there’s no traffic coming and you think the way is clear. At least, it looks clear to you. But there’s a sign that says: “No Turn On Red.”

Will it hurt if you exercise your own judgment, based on what you think your own eyeballs are telling you, and just go ahead and make that turn while the light is red? Maybe not. But it’s sure not going to hurt to wait the short while it takes for the light to turn to green.

Kill the time for the light to change by singing along to the radio.

Kill the time until the all clear sign for the  pandemic by donating blood.

A quick note about the Red Cross online registration interface: I have found the website to be a little clunky when it comes to searching for the blood drive you want.

There’s a lot of different local blood drives. I’ve tried my best to make the links in this article go directly to the Monroe County convention center blood drives.

Here’s a useful tip if you wind up needing to search manually for the Monroe County blood drives: Instead of searching by zipcode, search by sponsor code, which is: monroecty

On Friday, Moore wrapped up her weekly update by saying: “I appreciate all those individuals that have been able to make those donations for us in the past and will continue to do so in the future.”

Thanks for thinking about making a blood donation.