Battle of the Badges Blood Drive returns to Northern California Community Blood Bank

The Battle of the Badges blood drive has returned this week to the Northern California Community Blood Bank.

“So, the battle of the badges started in 2018 as a way for the local police departments, it really started with EPD, and the sheriff’s department to kind of supplement our blood supply during the summer months, which we are notoriously slow. It quickly evolved into a competition between almost all of the departments locally, you have the fire departments, you have a lot of the police departments, search and rescue, probation, fish and wildlife. So, you name it, we probably received a donation from them in the last couple years”, says Kyle Windham, Director of Donor resources for the Northern California Blood Bank. 

You don’t need a badge to add to the battle.  You can donate on behalf of one of the participating departments to help them meet their goal. 

“It’s kind of like a really good initiative to kind of get a lot of people to get involved. So you can kind of choose which group you’re a part of to try to give them a little bit of points towards it. So, it’s just kind of like a ‘cooperatition’. A little cooperation, as well as competition, that kind of see who can get the most people involved, essentially, either within their respective departments or with the public”, says Ja’Shawn Fields of Arcata Fire. 

The drive is hosted as an effort to bridge gaps during slow donation seasons like Summer. 

“Blood donation is important because there’s always going to be sick people. What we do here is get the blood, we ship it off the hospitals. We’re the only blood bank in Humboldt and Del Norte counties. So, we want to make sure that if anyone is sick in our area, and needs a transfusion or needs blood for any reason, could be a trauma, could be anything like that, that we’re able to get them that blood in a timely manner”, Windham says.

You can find the Northern California blood bank schedule here to see where you can donate https://nccbb.net/index.html/

Story by Tucker Caraway