January 2017 Donor Newsletter

Happy New Year!

As we close out 2016, we’d like to say Thank You to everyone who helped make 2016 a memorable year! Overall, 14,587 people signed in to donate at either a mobile drive or at our Erie Donor Center this year. We welcomed new donors, new groups and new staff members into the CBB family, and held some amazing events such as Austin’s birthday party, Family Days, and of course CBB’s own 50^th anniversary party!

A lot of changes were made, and we appreciate your patience as we continue to perfect our processes. 2017 is going to be an exciting year for Community Blood Bank!

Speaking of changes, Community Blood Bank will be closed some new holidays starting this year so please update your calendars! This year’s dates are:

January 16 (MLK Day)

February 20 (President’s Day)

March 17 (St. Patrick’s Day)

April 14 (Good Friday)

October 9 (Columbus Day)

Due to our wide coverage area (12 counties and counting!) and a 6-day workweek, our staff frequently work long days and may travel upwards of 2 hours to reach a blood drive. We want to make sure we’re providing our donors with the best customer service possible, so starting this year we’ll be taking these extra opportunities to give staff a chance to re-charge.

Celebrating National Blood Donor Month

It’s that time of year again! January is National Blood Donor Month and all month long everyone who signs in to donate blood at a mobile drive or at our Erie Donor Center will receive a coffee/tea mug, while supplies last! Make sure you take a picture of the first time you use your mug and tag us in it! Use the hastag #NationalBloodDonorMonth to help show the world how proud you are to be a blood donor! 

Stay in the Loop!

Interested in staying in touch with CBB? Update your email preferences in the Communication tab of your donor portal, follow us on social media and opt-in to receive texts from us! You can opt-in by texting BLOOD to 444-999. You’ll earn 50 points toward the CBB point store when you opt-in! And if you’ve opted in since Sept. 18, you’ll automatically receive 50 points too!

Find us on social media at:

Facebook: Community Blood Bank

Twitter: @OurDonorsSave

Instagram: communitybloodbank

Holiday Heroes: Final Days 

We’re down to the final days of our 3^rd Annual Holiday Heroes Campaign! The competition runs through Jan. 7, and has already seen over 240 donors from nearly 25 groups! The winning agency will win a trophy (and bragging rights!).

 Highmark Walk

As we mentioned last month, we’re already looking ahead to June! The Community Blood Bank will once again be participating in the Highmark Walk for a Healthy Community! Team and walker registration will be opening soon, so keep an eye out for how to join us for this amazing event! Last year, which was our first year participating in the walk, our generous supporters helped us raise more than $5,700 toward the purchase of an additional bloodmobile so we can reach even more donors in Northwest PA & Western NY!

The Point Store: A Great Place to Get the Gifts You Didn’t Get at Christmas

Congratulations to our $100 gift card winner in November, Cory Gustin! 

December’s winner will be announced next month, so stay tuned to see who to congratulate next!

Interested in winning? One winner is selected at random from our point store drawing each month, you can enter as many times as you’d like each month OR you can redeem your points for something tangible like a coffee mug, t-shirt, or gift card. Your points are yours to use as you’d like.

Our inventory of gift cards is constantly changing. Recent additions include: Tops, Subway, McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, Targt, IHOP, Texas Roadhouse, Amazon, Chipotle and Darden Restaurants. We even included a few Ultimate Gift Cards from Scott Enterprises, good at a variety of properties in Erie! 

And don’t forget, even if you haven’t created your Donor Portal account you are still earning points! Community Blood Bank staff is happy to assist you in creating an account or redeeming your points.

Happy shopping! 

As a reminder, points are added once data entry is completed, which may be done the following day. If you don’t see your points increase after a day or two (or by Tuesday if you donated the previous Saturday) please call the blood bank at 1-877-842-0631. Donors earn points even if they have not created an online account.