70-plus donate blood
Published 10:05 am Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Matt Peterson/matt.peterson@austindailyherald.com - Peggy Devine donates blood to the Red Cross Blood Drive Monday at the Oak Park Mall. The blood drive will continue at Oak Park Mall through Thursday.
The Red Cross Blood Drive opened in Austin Monday afternoon, and Austin was in a giving mood.
The Red Cross already registered 73 donors before its drive started at 1 p.m. at the Oak Park Mall, and several were waiting in line early in the afternoon to do their part, too. Twenty-one workers were busy while several more volunteers helped the steady flow of people.
The Red Cross Blood Drive is a mobile unit of full-time workers that travels throughout southern Minnesota and hosts multiple-day blood drives.
For its first day in Austin, the Red Cross hoped to see 100 donors, which wasn’t hard to reach. It hopes to see 100 more on Tuesday and at least 40 on both Wednesday and Thursday. The drive will likely slow down toward the end of the week, said Stacy Schmidtke, collection specialist with the Red Cross. That’s because the die-hard donors were already out in numbers the first day.
Peggy Devine was one of the many dedicated donors. She donates on a regular schedule.
“People that are healthy need to step up,” she said. “There’s a need for blood.”
The blood drive is open 1 to 7 p.m. Tuesday and noon to 6 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday. Anyone 110 pounds or more, 17 and older, generally healthy, and without certain disease or risk factors may donate blood.