Cascade Regional Blood Services
Alex's Coupons featured charity this month is Cascade Regional Blood Services. CRBS is a non-profit independent community blood center serving the South Sound region of Western Washington. CRBS provides 100% of the regular blood supply and services to many South Puget Sound hospitals, clinics and trauma centers including Tacoma General Hospital. Alex's Coupons is making a donation of $1000 to this very worthy organization.

My wife Andrea and I spent the first two weeks of May trying to figure out which charity should receive our monthly donation of $1000. Initially it was going to be a national charity, but after some thought we decided to keep the donation local this month. Yesterday was a particularly hot day here (at least for Seattle!) and while I was checking the weather report on King5's website I happened to read the following story:

Tacoma blood bank vans vandalized by tire slasher

I could not believe that anyone would be heartless, stupid, moronic (fill in your adjective here!) enough to do this to a blood bank! At first I was just angry and then as I read on in the story I came to this sentence:

"The mass slashing could cut into the non-profit organization's budget. To fix all 11 tires, it could cost them about $1,000."

Can you say "My Name is Earl"! Needless to say I immediately knew that we had found our featured charity for this month. I ran it past Andrea and she thought it was a great idea too. So I contacted Kelley Gregory at CRBS today and made arrangements for us to deliver a $1000 check to them tomorrow afternoon!

Now some of you may ask what a blood bank has to do with Childhood Cancer charities. The answer is...everything! Over the course of her five years of treatment my daughter Alex had hundreds of blood transfusions, both red blood and platelets. During her first transplant she was hooked up to a platelet drip for 3 days straight. Without organizations like CRBS, the red blood and platelets that Alex desperately needed to survive would not have been available. Now while Alex never received blood directly from CRBS, (Seattle Children's is serviced by a different blood bank), my son Nick received several red blood transfusions when he was in the Tacoma General NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) and that blood came directly from CRBS.

If you live in the South Sound area of Western Washington I would encourage you to check out the CRBS website to see when and where you can donate blood. Studies have shown that while 95% of the population will need blood by age 72, only 5% of the eligible population donates blood. You can give if you are in good health, weigh at least 110 pounds and are at least are 18 (ages 16-17 may donate when they present a signed Permission for a minor to donate blood form). If you don't live in this area please contact your local blood bank to find out when and where you can donate. You can find the closest blood bank to you on the American Association of Blood Banks website.

Thanks in advance for your support. Take care.

Todd, Andrea, Alex & Nicholas Martini