The National Bloggers Blood Drive – How You Can Get Involved

My good friend, Phil Burns (@phil801), whose daughter was recently diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia, has organized a cool concept that is starting in Salt Lake City today, but could be organized soon in your area as well. The idea is organized by his foundation, The Serenity Foundation, in conjunction with Takes All Types, who you may have heard about on TechCrunch and the New York Times, and is intended to organize bloggers in different areas to donate blood in honor of the need to donate and give blood in the USA. Did you know that only 5% of those eligible to donate blood actually donate?

The first of the blood drives is to take place as I am writing this, until 8pm MST in Salt Lake City, Utah at Twelve Horses, 13961 Minuteman Dr. Suite 125. You can help organize your own however by simply contacting Phil, or editing the Wiki they have set up with your own organized efforts. The Serenity Foundation will be there with you to help you get it organized and announced.

If you are a blogger, microblogger (aka Twitter, FriendFeed, or Identi.ca), or just like to donate blood, I highly suggest you look into organizing one of these for your own area. In fact, if you do, let me know and I’ll feature you here – I think this is a great, Web 2.0 way of allowing bloggers to unite in an effort to combat the shortage of blood in your area and our nation. Also, please help spread the word by blogging, twittering, “dent”‘ing, FriendFeeding, or whatever – the more exposure we can bring to this cause the better (and please, don’t feel like you need to link to me for it – go ahead and link to the Serenity Foundation’s site!).

You can learn more about how you can get started with a Bloggers Blood drive in your area via the Serenity Foundation’s website at http://theserenityfoundation.org/national-bloggers-blood-drive/. If you’d like to donate to the Burns family (Kevin Rose and Gary Vaynerchuk, this is as good an effort as any to shave your heads for!), you can do so on Serenity’s website at http://www.liftingupserenity.com/blog/donate/. I’m looking forward to see what comes of this.