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Their history dates back 77 years when blood transfusions were in their infancy.

Today, they're saving tens of thousands of lives each year.

Hello, I'm Steve Beverly, and on this edition of Tennessee is Talking, the topic is Lifeline Blood Services.

Just how vital are they to our local healthcare industry, and how can you help save a life?

Let the conversation begin.

That's so cool.

Then that's when I said that-- The problem with that idea is-- Whoa, that was amazing.

Then I came up with a solution.

What was that about?

Here's what I think about it.

Now we're talking.

West Tennessee PBS Presents Tennessee is Talking.

Let the conversation begin.

Thanks for joining the discussion here on Tennessee is Talking.

Hello, I'm Steve Beverly, and each day lives are being saved by the work Lifeline Blood Services is doing.

Collecting blood that is a vital part of our local healthcare.

Here to tell us more about it are Melinda Reed with Lifeline Blood Services.

Of course, she handles all their communications, as well as Brandi Crawford, who is the Director of Community Services.

Ladies, it's wonderful to have you with us.

Thank you for having us.

-Thank you.

-Let's start off.

Melinda, Lifeline Blood Services has a very rich history in our community, it has a legacy, and it's almost a brand name that almost everyone-- It's automatic.

You know where they are and what you're doing there with that.

How did this all start?

Right.

About two years ago, we celebrated our 75th anni.. Like you said, we are celebrating 77 years of saving lives here in West Tennessee.

It all started with Jack and Martha Smith having this vision to serve West Tennessee.

Blood collections have definitely changed over the years and we've really grown over the years, too.

We are really proud of serving West Tennessee communities for 77 years.

We are actually in 21 counties in West Tennessee.

We serve 17 hospitals, 21 emergency helicopter systems, and one ground ambulance system.

We really seek to serve our mission, which is to have a safe and ready blood supply for our West Tennesseans.

When you started in this job, what did-- well, I should say, what now do about the mission of Lifeline Blood Services that you didn't know at the outset?

I've grown to know so much more.

I started as a blood donor in high school.

My first time donating was a senior at JCM.

Of course, we love our high school blood donors because you're really setting the tone of giving back and serving your community and really having a bigger picture of what life is all about.

Serving and helping.

We're so much more than even blood collections.

We actually have the capability to donate platelets and plasma.

I've grown to know that in my first day on the job, that we have a vibrant center in Dyersburg that is still young in its legacy, but it's growing every day.

We have a blood collection center in Dyersburg that also has a variety of donors from blood collections to platelets and I believe plasma now, too.

We've got mobiles every day just about in West Tennessee collecting blood from just generous wonderful donors, whether they're first-time blood donors or they're committed blood donors.

I've really grown to learn about the whole process.

Brandi, in your role as community services director, what is your mission in a given day?

What do you do with your job?

On any given day, I am encouraging and giving advice to the recruiters on how they can go out and better serve their communities in various different counties.

I try to give them an encouraging word that every day is not easy, but you just remember that we are here to save lives.

I try to motivate the staff to find new innovative ways of going about to collect that blood, whether it be on West Tennessee is Talking or by engaging with an auxiliary in their communities, just different ways that we know or we're trying to find ways that we can continue to grow our blood supply.

Brandi, we know that people of all ages can donate blood, but who specifically do you target that you really want to and where the need is most essential?

The need is most essential with our younger generation.

We do allow 17, you have to be at least 17 years of age to donate, and we really target, as Melinda said, those high schools.

We hope that if we set the tone there that they will continue on into adulthood.

Right now, our biggest generation that donated are Baby Boomers, and slowly they are dwindling for whatever various reasons and so we're looking for those-- Because we're getting old.

[laughter] Not just that.

You're enjoying life and these are your golden years, and we love that for you guys and so we're wanting that younger generation now to pick up the torch and to continue on in you guys' legacy.

Absolutely.

Melinda, in segueing off of that, sometimes for people who have never done this before, they think it's a very painful process and that you're going to be just suffering with this for hours after it's over with.

Correct the myths that exist about giving blood.

Let's take the veil off of the perceived-- right.

It's easy to think, oh, it's going to be like this, and then you experience it, and you realize it was nothing like I had worked up in my mind.

Sometimes we get worked up but it is a really much quicker process than one would think.

You're in the donor chair, a mere eight to 10 minutes on average.

-I've been there, so I know.

-He's been there.

It goes by quickly, doesn't it, Steve?

Yes, it does.

Our team, our phlebotomists are friendly and engaging.

They make sure that first-time donors feel comfortable and at ease, and that they're aware of the process and what's about to happen.

It is a slight pinch when you do feel that needle, but it really pales in comparison when you think about the big picture.

Every donation saves up to three lives, and you're saving lives here in West Tennessee.

It's a loved one.

It is a neighbor, it is someone that you may sit beside at ch..

It could be someone direct, such as someone just like you.

It really pales in comparison to that slight, quick pinch, and it's over in eight to 10 minutes.

Then afterwards, you just feel great, and we encourage our donors to rest for about 10 to 15 minutes, enjoy their favorite snack in our donor services area.

-They're good snacks, too.

-Good snacks.

A wide variety of Little Debbie snacks.

At that time, we encourage, you can't really have coffee before you donate, but you can have coffee or a soft drink, juice or water afterwards, just to get your blood sugar levels back up where they need to be.

I would tell, folks, it is really not as long of a process as one would think, and it is virtually painless.

If you love a good time-saver hack, to make it go a little quicker, complete your medical questionnaire online.

I was going to ask about that because it's not a lengthy questionnaire, but it's detailed to try to determine if you have had any specific illnesses or situations to prevent you from giving blood.

That process has really been shortened up by being able to go online.

If somebody does that, how do they do it?

-Absolutely.

It does shorten the process up.

You go to lifelinebloodserve.org.

Whether in a desktop computer or your mobile device, there's a button that says Drive check-in.

You're going to click on that button at the top right-hand corner of our website and that will lead you to our online medical questionnaire.

By knocking that out before you head to our center the very same day, you will save about 10 to 15 minutes from your donation experience there at Lifeline.

It will produce a one-time use QR code that's just special for you as a donor and you can print that out or show it on your mobile device and our phlebotomist, one of our team members, will scan that.

It's nice to know that you can bypass that process at our center by doing it in the comfort of your own home or at your desk before you head to Lifeline or to our mobile.

It's applicable for our mobiles, too.

I can vouch for it being a very quick process by going online to do it as well.

Brandi, and we just heard from Melinda a bit about this.

You've mentioned it also about our mobile units that go out to the various smaller communities, our neighboring cities that are around us.

Tell us how that works.

About on average, we send three mobiles out each and every day to various different cities.

What happens, is that my team or our team gets together and we try to plan a blood drive at least four weeks in advance.

Some drives are on a recurring schedule, so those are quite easy to go ahead and schedule but for those that are filling in the gaps, we try to let the individual know that we like to get them on the schedule at least three to four weeks prior to.

That way, Melinda can share to her various different media partners and we can get the mail out to those individuals in those cities to let them know that we're coming to them soon.

Once that email is sent, we generate a calendar that can be found on our website as well.

We update that calendar and it's got times of the drive and we then take that calendar and give it to Melinda and we send it to our clerical support staff and they prepare cards and things of that nature to be mailed out.

It's just a continuous ball that is always rolling.

For those individuals that would like to have a new drive, say that they've never had a blood drive with us before, we do encourage them to sign up at least 35 to 40 people.

That ensures us that we're going to have a successful tur.. With that 35 to 40 people pre-committed to say, I'm going to come to this location at this particular date and time, that fast tracks being able to put it on the schedule and get things taken care of in a timely fashion.

How do you coordinate for specific groups and who usually are groups that would host a blood drive in any community?

Of course, we're encouraging to anyone that would like to have a blood drive and more often than none, once they know the time and the work that has to be put in it, there are some groups that are a little reluctant, but for those that are felt compelled or drawn to be an advocate for Lifeline or would like to help with Lifeline blood services, they typically give us a call.

They tell us a date, whether it be a health fair or a community event, or a church event.

There are schools that have various different events that they want us to be a part of.

Aside from that, we have grocery stores that don't mind us coming.

When we were in the height of COVID, there were so many people in our area that reached out to us and said, listen, I've got a huge open vacant parking lot.

You guys just come on and set up and stay however long you need to.

In those days, we really did appreciate it because we were limited in where we could go.

Now COVID has subsided and we're back into schools and churches and banks and all of those grocery stores.

The location can vary.

It just depends on what event you've got going on, how we can benefit from the event as well, and make sure that the donors are coming.

Melinda, as we just heard from Brandi about COVID, when it was at its peak, how much did that stress the blood supply and the available blood supply for our communities?

I think it was an immense amount of stress.

It was a daily conversation that we had.

There were several roundtable discussions of where do we go?

Where can we go?

That was stressful, even on a day-to-day basis.

To be quite honest with you, Steve, there was a bit of an increase during COVID in our collections.

That's interesting.

To be honest with you, I think it was the Surgeon General at the time, did a press conference and said, go give blood.

We took heed and everybody came out to donate blood, so there was an increase.

We even introduced what we call convalescent plasma where anyone who had had COVID developed a specific antibody that they could donate plasma and it could help all those individuals that were suffering from COVID in the hospital.

There was a bit of an increase, even though we were limited in where we could go.

[laughter] I understand that because at least you knew during that time, and I remember the messages constantly coming out about how serious the need was.

I want to say to our viewers, just for one specific thing, if just recently you heard what sounded like banging on a door, there's nothing wrong with your set.

There was just something that happened in the room where we were at and somebody didn't know we were taping the show, and so that's what happened.

[laughter] Now that I cleared that up with the viewers, tell me what are the blood types that you're in most times during the year that you're in most need of?

Most times of the year, we are in need of type O blood.

It is most ordered by our local hospitals, so we have a big job to do serving 21 counties in West Tennessee.

Type O+ and Type O-is most in demand.

What's really special about Type O+ is it's compatible with any positive blood type.

Myself being A+, I can receive O+.

Such as myself.

Yes, I'm O+.

Yes, a very popular blood type.

O+ is compatible with any positive blood type and O- is our universal blood donor, so it's compatible with any blood type.

However, it can only receive O-blood, so it's really generous, but it's also really picky in itself.

This may seem like an elementary question, but there are many people who don't know what their blood type is.

How do they find that out?

I think that's so interesting to find out your blood type, especially our first-time donors get really excited about that.

I would tell that individual, well, come on in and donate at either one of our centers in Jackson or in Dyersburg, or on a bloodmobile, and it will take us a few weeks to circle back with you with your new blood donor ID card.

You'll receive that in the mail.

It's in the shape of a gift card, so you'll get that in the mail.

I think that's really neat to know what type of blood that you can receive, but also who you're benefiting when you donate.

Yes, just come on in and donate and we'll find out.

Every donation, and this is really interesting Steve, every blood donation is tested with the highest level of integrity at a lab in Chattanooga.

When you donate a product, blood, whole blood, plasma, or platelets, it is tested in Chattanooga.

Once we receive it and then our couriers fulfill those orders by delivering it to our hospitals, ambulance, ground ambulance, and the air ambulance helicopter transport system, it takes about 48 hours after your donation.

It's a quick turnaround, but we always have to think in advance a little bit, just to make sure that those products are on our shelves and they're ready.

Brandi, in looking at the big picture of all of this, we talked earlier about the fact that you really have a bigger job trying to get younger people to come and do this.

What's the hardest sell to somebody, let's say, I'm just going to throw out a demographic here, say between-- and here I am banging my ring on the table here.

What is the biggest challenge to sell this to somebody, say, between 21 and 40?

Being slightly in that demographic.

[laughter] -Hey, but you're in it.

That's.. Slightly.

I'm going to say the fear of the unknown or possibly a story that they've once heard from someone who didn't have a very good experience.

Sometimes we like to exaggerate our stories in comparison to reality, what really happened.

I think that's just what carries that in their minds that, such and such had a bad experience.

I don't want to go through that so I'm just not going to even try.

Or even, I don't know what to expect.

Do I need to know my blood type?

I don't know my blood type.

Can I go donate?

I'm uncertain of some things and so I just don't really want to push my luck.

I think that's the biggest hurdle that we've got to try to overcome is that, there are more success stories out there than there are bad stories.

Letting them know those success stories is what we're wanting to accomplish with our message and with our presence.

To know that, listen, despite what you may have heard, you give it a try because your donation can very much save up to three different lives.

We want you to have that experience for yourself.

That would be my opinion.

I may not be totally in all sectors, but I personally believe that that's our biggest hurdle.

As you're talking about that, oftentimes, it is someone who has had the good experience that's the best salesperson to someone else who may be saying, I don't know about this.

That's the key thing, I think, that we look at where this is concerned.

I want you to tell me, Melinda, a success story, if you have one that you could share with us.

Obviously, we're not going to use any names, but a success story about someone whose life may have been saved from blood donations.

Oh, absolutely.

There is a young man in our community who had a .. as a newborn and received life-saving platelet transfusions.

He's a vibrant young man who just had a birthday this summer.

By generous donors such as ourselves, all being donors, he's able to thrive as an eight-year-old who loves basketball.

You just never know who you're going to impact and that's just so amazing to know that we have that capability, we have that power to really change someone's life for the better with your generous act.

This little cutie could go on to coach an NBA basketball team, he could go on to find a cure for cancer.

You just never know what's in his future but speaking of what we all have the power to reach as a donor or even as a recipient such as that young man, we have a donor who this summer celebrated reaching her 100th gallon of contributions with Lifeline Blood Services.

We just wanted to give a loving shout-out to our friend Sharon Clayton of Scotts Hill who celebrated her 100th gallon of contributions.

She's been donating with Lifeline since 1982.

Thank you, Sharon.

Yes.

Absolutely.

That is a fabulous story in that the gift just keeps on giving when someone comes in and they do this this many times.

One of the other things I wanted to really delve into a bit is when we look at different times of the year, and I know that before COVID-- I know this was stressed heavily, particularly before COVID.

What are the most critical times of year, Brandi, that we really need blood more than any-- and not minimizing that we need it all the time.

Absolutely.

What tends to be the most critical time or times o..

In my 13 years, almost 14 years experience with Lifeline, I have seen ebbs and flows throughout my tenure.

I'm going to say January, February, coming off of the holiday.

The weather is quite questionable here in West Tennessee.

Oh, come on.

Tell me.

[laughs] I have never known a Jan.. where we've not had to shut the center down or delay mobiles going out so that puts us back with illnesses, sicknesses, cough and cold season, flu season.

That is a very challenging and stressful time of year.

January and February, for sure.

Come March, we're coming out of the ashes.

The potential that the roads are iced over.

Yes.

We're coming out of the ashes.

We have more schools that are able to host us.

Our high school blood drives are picking back up.

March, April, mid-May, we're good.

We're in the height of it all.

Come Memorial Day, we see a bit of a decline.

Schools are out, summer starts, vacation starts, traveling starts.

We've got to get pushed to the back burner.

January, February, and then end of May, June, July, a little bit of August, we see a little peak because school starts back.

We just started back here because this is September.

We have just hit that point again where you talk about the ebbs and flows.

We're going up on a high again.

We're seeing a high.

Then we're going to come back down after Thanksgiving because we're going into the holiday season.

I always know that I get a message and a text from your office about particularly when we get to Thanksgiving and Christmas about how, in addition to think about this because it's a time of year of giving, to think of this as a gift to donate blood.

Absolutely.

Yes.

Those months are particularly challenging.

I've seen it where, like you said, November and December typically are times of giving.

Then sometimes we can see just a bit of a hike and then we go down again.

The thing is the message is out there, and it's out there constantly.

We want to make sure that everybody knows that even though there may be stress at one time of year or over another, that it's important all the time to be able to give blood.

It really is.

Something to keep in mind is that blood has a shel..

It is a 42 day shelf life, and it cannot be produced or manufactured.

I will be that broken record that is always asking for, first of all, Type O, and then second of all, if we have a critical need, I'm going to let about it and let where our bloodmobiles are going to be in West Tennessee.

42 days, Steve.

It's not going to change.

Now, that's almost a given on anything because of the fact that, as you say, there is a shelf life, and you can't go beyond that.

We've got about just a shade more than a minute yet.

How can, if someone, a civic club, a group of organization that would like to hear more or to hear in person about your message, how would they arrange that?

Reach out to us at lifelinebloodserve.org.

We have an email submission form.

We'd love to hear from you.

We'd love to encourage folks to consider donating to Lifeline if you have the financial capability.

We have a brick legacy program where you can leave a special donor, recipient, or your business name in a brick that's on our property in North Jackson at 183 Sterling Farms Drive.

Reach out to us if you have any questions and we'd love to connect you with an answer.

I want to thank you both.

This has been so informative and so critical for .. that are part of the West 10 PBS family to understand the need for blood is real, it's now, it's always.

Thank you both.

Absolutely.

Thank you for having.. We appreciate that.

We are just about out of time for this edition of Tennessee is Talking.

As I said, we want to thank Melinda Reid as well as Brandi Crawford with Lifeline Blood Services for joining us.

If you want to rewatch this program, if you got into us in the middle, or if you want to share it with a friend, remember you can stream it on the PBS app along with all local Channel 11 programs.

You can also watch it on the West Tennessee PBS YouTube channel and on westtnpbs.org.

You can keep the conversation going by following West Tennessee PBS on social media.

Until next time, I'm Steve Beverly.

Keep on talking Tennessee.

The program you've been watching was made possible through the generous financial support of West Tennessee PBS viewers like you.

Please visit westtnpbs.org and make a donation today so that we can continue to make local programs like this possible.

Thank you.