Members of the MTSU community can celebrate the season of new life by donating blood at the 2023 spring blood drive Thursday, April 6, and help neighbors share another beautiful Middle Tennessee spring.

The spring 2023 blood drive is set from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. April 6 in Room 322 inside the Keathley University Center, located at 1524 Military Memorial Drive in the center of campus.

It’s sponsored by MTSU’s Public Health Program in the Department of Health and Human Performance for the American Red Cross Heart of Tennessee Chapter.

A campus parking map is available at https://bit.ly/MTSUParking. Off-campus donors can obtain a one-day permit at https://mtsu.edu/parking/visit.php or park free in the university’s Rutherford Boulevard Lot and ride the Raider Xpress shuttle to the KUC.

Donors can make an appointment today for the April 6 event by visiting here, using the “American Red Cross Blood” app, or texting “BLOODAPP” to 90999. Walk-in donors also are welcome.

This blood drive, like each one at the university, is open to MTSU students, faculty, staff, alumni, friends and neighbors across Middle Tennessee. Donations of whole blood, plasma and platelets are welcome.

Each donor will receive a free T-shirt and a $20 Amazon e-gift card as thanks for their lifesaving help.

“We strongly encourage people to make an appointment!” said Casie Higginbotham, a Department of Health and Human Performance lecturer and a longtime blood-drive organizer. “Walk-ins are welcome, and we’ll do our best to accommodate them, but having an appointment, and completing the pre-screening on the Red Cross app, really helps.

“I’m always impressed with the consistency of donors on our campus,” she added. “We’re always thrilled when we have first-timers, but there are repeat donors we see almost every time we have a drive. The commitment of so many to continue giving time after time really reflects the True Blue spirit of our community.”

The Red Cross’s Murfreesboro-based Heart of Tennessee Chapter is asking for eligible donors of all types to help rebuild local — and national — blood supplies that continue to be reduced by coronavirus- and weather-related blood drive cancellations.

They’re specifically asking people with type O blood — the “universal donor” — to give. The organization also urgently needs platelets to help patients with cancer, chronic conditions and traumatic injuries.

Blood donated at MTSU’s spring 2023 blood drive can help neighbors across Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi, and nationwide when necessary. The Red Cross’s Heart of Tennessee Chapter provides various services for 10 counties in the Midstate: Rutherford, Bedford, Cannon, Coffee, DeKalb, Franklin, Lincoln, Marshall, Moore and Warren.

Donors can save time at the April 6 blood drive by completing the required health questionnaire online on donation day, before they give blood, with the Red Cross’s “Rapid Pass.”

At this year’s MTSU “valentine blood drive,” held Feb. 8, donors gave 49 units of blood, potentially helping nearly 150 patients in need of blood products.

During last fall’s “True Blue Blood Drive” in October, an annual three-day drive that encourages participants to “Bleed Blue” for MTSU in a friendly rivalry with Western Kentucky University, MTSU community donors gave 480 units of blood, potentially helping more than 1,400 neighbors with their blood, platelets and plasma.

The Red Cross says up to three patients can use the components from a single unit of blood.

For more information about donating blood and blood products for the American Red Cross, visit https://redcrossblood.org anytime.

— Gina E. Fann (gina.fann@mtsu.edu)