AUGUSTA, Ga. (WJBF) – It’s National Blood Donor Month and one local blood donation center is encouraging people to make donating blood a New Year’s resolution. 

Healthcare workers say it’s this time of year where the need for blood donations is the highest. For blood donors wishing to help save lives, the Blood Connection offers services across Georgia and the Carolinas. 

Coming out of the holiday season, many find themselves busy and dealing with seasonal illnesses, decreasing the number of blood donations being made.

“The need for blood never goes away,” says Katie Smithson, press and media coordinator of The Blood Connection. “It’s one of those medical supplies that hospitals always have on hand.”

With just an hour of your time and one blood donation, you can save up to three lives.

“We always aim to have several days’ supply in our inventory, so that no matter when a hospital calls, we have those products available that they need,” says Smithson.

The Blood Connection assists several hospitals across our area, including Doctor’s Hospital.

“When we say three lives or when we say we need to collect a thousand units of blood everyday for our hospitals- those are numbers, but they’re people,” says Smithson. “Every time there’s a unit of blood that’s needed, that’s a patient in our community that needs that blood product for their quality of life. So, we really hope that people will consider their neighbors or the stranger they pass on the street that may be on the other side of that blood donation.”

The Blood Connection aims to keep an inventory that can even handle the unpredictable emergencies.

Eligible donors can donate blood every 56 days, and platelets every 7 days.

“When you’re making your list of New Year’s resolutions and goals and things that you wanna do, we really hope that people will consider not just putting donate blood more often in their list, but framing it in a way of reminding themselves that they can put saving a life on their list of New Year’s resolutions,” says Smithson. “Because when you donate blood, you’re saving up to three lives with just one donation.”

The Blood Connection has 14 physical donation centers and more than 50 mobile units open to the community. For more information on how you can be a blood donor, visit https://thebloodconnection.org/augusta-center/.