Staff Writer
Workspace: The Blood Alliance
It’s been a pretty good year for The Blood Alliance.
The organization that provides blood and blood products to hospitals and facilities across Northeast Florida and parts of Georgia and South Carolina has grown and expanded its reach in conjunction with the area’s growing population, all while settling in nicely at its new Southside headquarters.
For those who call the facility their work home, the change from Shands Jacksonville to its new donor facility and headquarters, The Blood Alliance at Deerwood Park, has been welcome.
“It’s been great,” said Paul Ramey, The Blood Alliance’s graphics, copy and Web manager. “Everyone is now in the same building and we’re all working together.”
And Ramey does mean everyone. From lab technicians and “the troops on the ground” in the call center to Medical Director Dr. Marsha Bertholf, the new facility is a spacious work space with room to grow, said Communications and Media Relations Manager Odette Struys — and that’s the plan.
“We’re going to keep growing because the need is there,” said Struys, who emphasized the need for 350 donated blood pints a day.
Locally, there are a dozen donor centers along with 10 roving mobile units that host blood drives, but the effort is ongoing to get new donors registered. One way the organization will attempt to accomplish that this year is through social media.
Between an updated Web site and anticipated explosion on sites like Facebook and Twitter, officials hope to see an increase in their numbers after coming off a better-than-anticipated holiday season — a time when donation numbers are typically down.
“We did well during the season,” said Bertholf. “We’ve had a pretty good year, but we’re looking forward to a great 2010.”
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