Here at DISTek, one of our core values is to support the communities in which we live and work. It is in that spirit that we recently partnered with the American Red Cross and hosted a blood drive at our Cedar Falls office on Thursday, September 27th. As the carts were rolled in, our friends from the Red Cross transformed our training room into a blood collection facility.
It’s clear that our employees are very passionate about the mission of the American Red Cross. Before the blood drive officially kicked off and began taking donors back for their scheduled appointments, one of our employees made a resonating plea to emphasize the importance of blood donations and encourage fellow co-workers to contribute if they were able. She relayed the message that as a parent of a child that depends on some sort of blood products on a weekly basis and with blood supplies being low in Iowa, she has seen first hand the impact that donors can have and truly how important each donation is.
We had another employee go above and beyond and stepped her donation up to the ‘power red’ donation. This type of donation involves an automated process that separates red blood cells from the other blood components, thus providing a highly concentrated dose of red blood cells. This type of donation is typically given to trauma patients, newborns and for emergency transfusions during birth, people with sickle cell anemia, or anyone suffering severe blood loss.
We are also fortunate enough to have another of our employees support the Red Cross in his free time, by participating as a board member at the local chapter. In addition, in recognition of the selfless contribution made by follow co-workers, another employee opened up his own pocket and offered anyone who donated an ice cream treat from Peppy’s Ice Cream Truck as a treat on him as a sincere thank you for their donation.
As I sit here, just having typed out this blog post, I am both humbled and grateful to be surrounded by co-workers that have such big hearts and are truly invested in helping others.
We want to thank all the DISTek employees who organized and/or donated blood at the blood drive, as well as the others in the community that made appointments and stopped in.
