'Tis the season to donate blood

The best Christmas present you can give could save the life of a perfect stranger.

Right now, LifeSouth Community Blood Center is seeking donors to alleviate a critical blood shortage. Each blood donation has the potential to save three lives. Patients who need blood transfusions to survive depend on volunteer donors.

Blood banks experience shortages during the holiday season, said Ed Keith, the center's regional director, because people are busy shopping, traveling out of state or getting their homes ready for visits from friends and relatives.

The need for blood, however, never takes a holiday, and LifeSouth is offering a few extra incentives to bring in donors during its holiday season drive.

Anyone who donates between now and Christmas Eve at either the center's location at 12395 Cortez Blvd. or one of its blood mobiles is automatically entered in a drawing to win one of two Wii consoles.

But there's more. Donors who give between now and Dec. 31 also are eligible to win a gift basket that includes flavored coffees and gourmet cookies. Those who make platelet donations, which take at least an hour instead of 15 or 20 minutes for a whole blood donation, are entered twice. Platelets form clots to stop bleeding and are needed by surgery and cancer patients and burn victims.

Your blood donation could bring a smile to a child's face.

As part of its Winter Wishes campaign, LifeSouth will donate on each donor's behalf a stuffed bloodhound to either the Hernando County Sheriff's Office or Spring Hill Fire Rescue. The stuffed animals are handed out to comfort children when deputies and firefighters respond to calls. The toy animals are called Beau's Happy Hounds.

Donating blood could also help make your pet healthy. Take your post-donation sheet as proof of your donation to Westside Animal Clinic in Spring Hill for free rabies and distemper shots for your dog or cat.

The LifeSouth Hernando Donor Center is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Friday; 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday; 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday; and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. It is closed on Christmas Day.

The center's two blood mobiles travel to sites throughout the county. The schedules are published Thursday in Hernando Today's health section, or call 352-596-2002 for locations and times.

For more information about LifeSouth, visit www.lifesouth.org.