Donors help save lives and earn Royals tickets at Friday blood drive

By Leah Rainwater

Friday was not only a win for the area blood center, but for some St. Joseph blood donors and Royals fans as well.

“This is an opportunity for the community to come out and help save lives of their peers, of their, you know, their coworkers, the people that they live with,” said LaFonna Bojorquez, a collection supervisor with the Community Blood Center. “Our donations stay local, so everything that our donors are donating is for the people in their community, so we’re all about saving lives of your neighbors.”

The St. Joseph Downtown Library partnered with the Community Blood Center and the Kansas City Royals to save lives.

“It’s a good thing to try to do when you have the opportunity to,” said Marina Trifan, one of the library staff who donated on Friday. 

Some local donors were able to receive a free Royals T-shirt and two vouchers for a game for their donations. 

Trifan said she’s excited about the opportunity her donation provided. 

“I’ve never paid much attention to it (baseball) so, I’m kind of excited about the tickets cause I’ve never been,” Trifan said.

Bojorquez said the summer season is a good time for people to donate.

“More people are out on vacation, they’re traveling, it’s hot,” Bojorquez said. “Everyone saves all the things that they wanna get out and do for the summertime, so sometimes it’s kinda hard to commit to blood donations or anything aside from that.”

And Bojorquez said every drop of blood counts.

“Anything that we leave with is more than we came with,” Bojorquez said. “So we’re going to be appreciative with whatever we get.”

She also says that partnering with the Royals is good for community outreach.

“I think the Royals are a big part of the community, as well as the Chiefs, but also they’re just a big part of the community and so are we, so we and we wanna help them and them help us and us help the community,” Bojorquez said.

One thing that the Community Blood Center wants people to know, is that anyone can donate. However, Bojoquez said donating is something younger people should know more about. 

“Hopefully more younger people get into donating, you know, we do do a lot of high schools and that’s great, so just, you know, I don’t want young people to think that they can’t do anything. Blood donation is definitely something that they can do and it is saving lives,” Bojoquez said.

The blood center said anyone can donate if they are 16 years or older.