Blood drive finds inspiration in illness

Eagle Scout hopeful to hold blood drive at Monmouth Road First Aid station.

By: Leon Tovey
   MONROE — Brian Stigner is out for blood.
   The 16-year-old Monroe High School junior and Monroe Boy Scout Troop 3 member will be hosting a blood drive at the Township First Aid building on Monmouth Road Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. as part of his bid to become an Eagle Scout.
   In order to attain the highest rank of Eagle, every Scout must be active in his troop for a period of six months after becoming a Life Scout, receive letters of recommendation, have earned 21 merit badges and complete a community service project demonstrating his planning and leadership abilities.
   But Brian, who has earned all but two of the required 21 merit badges, decided to hold a blood drive in conjunction with the Blood Center of New Jersey as his community service project for a personal reason, as well.
   His grandmother, Elsie Kelley, suffered for more than 20 years from immune thrombocytopenic purpura, an autoimmune disease that results in the destruction of platelets — the cells that cause blood to clot — by the liver or spleen.
   "She was always needing blood transfusions," Brian says of his grandmother, who died a year ago. "So I guess I just knew that there’s always a need for blood."
   That knowledge led Brian — with the encouragement of his father, Ken, and Troop 3 Scoutmaster Mike Sabanos — to approach the Blood Center of New Jersey, an East Orange-based blood bank, when it was time for him to start planning his community service project.
   "I asked them for available dates and they gave me the 15th," Brian says. "So I cleared it with the First Aid Squad and the township and started putting up posters."
   Judy Daniels, a spokeswoman for the Blood Center, said that in a typical year, the center will have five or six drives coordinated by Scouts working on their Eagle projects.
   "You don’t see it every day, but they aren’t unheard of," she said.
   She said that drives organized by Scouts tend to be "among the best organized of first-time drives."
   The Blood Center of New Jersey supplies over 100,000 blood products annually to around 35 hospitals and medical centers in north and central New Jersey. Ms. Daniels said in order to meet that demand, the center needs to collect an average of 160 pints of blood per day.
   Ms. Daniels said the need for blood is especially great each January because fewer people donate during the holiday season and because red blood cells have a shelf life of just 42 days.
   Nationwide, blood banks currently have just a one-day supply of O positive and negative blood, the types most often used in hospitals because of their compatibility with other blood types, Ms. Daniels said.
   In order to donate blood, a person must be at least 17 years old (photo identification is required), weigh at least 110 pounds and have no tattoos less than a year old.