Meet Carol Yeatts: Our Platelet Hero!

Carol Yeatts, her grandson Caleb, and husband Steve.

Carol Yeatts has donated platelets and blood since her college years at Emory University. In recent years, Carol donates platelets as much as possible. As an O+ blood type, she realizes the important responsibility she has as a universal donor.

“I donate because platelets have a shorter shelf-life than blood and because they are especially needed for chemo-patients,” says Yeatts.

A single platelet donation can provide enough platelets for a full therapeutic dose for a patient in need. In fact, some platelet donations yield enough platelets for two or three therapeutic doses. By contrast, it takes four-to-six whole blood donations to produce a single therapeutic dose. In this way, Yeatts is helping to save lives every time she donates platelets!

Are you thinking about donating platelets?

Here are some important facts to know before you donate platelets:

·      Platelet donations are collected at select American Red Cross Blood Donation Centers only.

·      Donors should not take any aspirin or products containing aspirin 48 hours before donation.  State regulations in New York require up to 3 days prior.

·      You can donate up to 24 times per year.

·      Plasma can be collected simultaneously with a platelet donation.  Plasma can be collected every 28 days up to 13 times per year.

·      The donation takes approximately 1.5 to 2 hours and may be a single or dual arm procedure depending on the collection device used.

·      Call 1-800-RED-CROSS for platelet donation opportunities at a local American Red Cross Blood Donation Center near you. 

·      The Athens, Ga. location is located at 3525 Atlanta Hwy in the Academy Sports shopping center, and the office phone number is 706-543-8656.

·      To pass the time while you donate, you may listen to music or simply relax during the donation process.  Most American Red Cross Donation Centers also offer TVs or DVD players.  Wi-Fi is also available at some locations.

·      If you are a platelet donor, you can still make regular whole blood or double red cell donations.  Both gifts are vitally important to patients with life threatening diseases.

·          A platelet donation is also called a 'platelet apheresis' or 'platelet pheresis' donation.

Though the American Red Cross East Georgia Chapter doesn’t do blood or platelet donations at its Pulaski Street, Athens, Ga. location, we wanted to share some information about the platelet donation process to clear up any confusion!

To learn more about platelet donation, and listen to inspiring stories like Carol’s, watch the following video: 

Hurricane Irene Update

An American Red Cross shelter at Nassau Community College in Long Island, New York

on August 27, 2011

Thousands of people from North Carolina to New England have turned to the American Red Cross for help in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, as flooding, widespread power outages, and wind damage have devastated communities. Since the night before the storm, the Red Cross has operated or supported nearly 500 shelters and provided more than 52,000 overnight stays.

A Red Cross volunteer comforts a Lost Valley, Maryland resident who has survived five floods, with Hurricane Irene being one of the worst, on August 30, 2011.

More than a thousand trained disaster workers, including 76 from Georgia, are engaged in relief operations in a dozen coastal states. Every Red Cross Emergency Response Vehicle (ERV) east of the Rocky Mountains – more than 260 vehicles – has been mobilized to support recovery efforts. Georgia’s entire fleet of ERVs has been deployed, and the Atlanta-based Emergency Communications Response Vehicle, capable of powering essential equipment for a relief operation under disaster conditions, is being utilized in North Carolina.

Ten kitchens, capable of serving about 140,000 hot meals each day, are operating or being set up in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and New York. Arrangements have also been made to have approximately 1.3 million meals available in North Carolina, Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, and New York through Red Cross partners, and thousands of relief items such as clean-up kits, rakes, ice chests, and tarps have been shipped affected areas.

While many states are still assessing the damage, the Red Cross expects to be helping people in hard-hit areas for the next several weeks.

You can help provide Red Cross relief for the families impacted by Hurricane Irene by making a donation to American Red Cross Disaster Relief today. Your gift enables the Red Cross to provide shelter, food, counseling, and other emergency assistance. The Red Cross is not a government agency, yet we are guided by a Congressional Charter to respond without hesitation to disasters across the country and around the world. To carry our mission, the Red Cross relies on public generosity.

Each year, the Red Cross responds to nearly 70,000 disasters nationwide each year and spends on average $450 million on disaster readiness and relief. The costs of our comprehensive response to Hurricane Irene have not been fully realized but are anticipated to be in the tens of millions.

HOW YOU CAN HELP:

Call To Donate: the local chapter at 706-353-1645 and talk to Jeff Taylor, Executive Director
Text A Donation: Text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10 by phone
Mail A Check: Mail a check to
                          American Red Cross East Georgia Chapter
                          490 Pulaski Street
                          Athens, GA 30601
Donate Online: American Red Cross East Georgia Chapter Website

2011 Annual Meeting & Volunteer Recognition Banquet

Janis Martinez, this year's guest speaker from the Metropolitan Atlanta Chapter of the Red Cross, and Jeff Taylor, the executive director of the East Georgia Chapter, pose following the 2011 Meeting and Volunteer Recognition Banquet.  

The Red Cross East Georgia Chapter celebrated its many wonderful volunteers at the Annual Meeting and Volunteer Recognition Banquet on Tuesday, June 21, 2011 with a video and picture slide show, a guest speaker and an awards ceremony.  Janis Martinez, a board member from the Metropolitan Atlanta Chapter of the Red Cross, attended the banquet as this year's guest speaker and shared her story of survival.  She endured extensive burns as a young girl and attributes her survival to the many donations of blood, plasma, and skin grafts from the American Red Cross.  Her story reminded many volunteers at the banquet of why they do what they do: for the benefit of others. To date, Martinez has donated over 100 pints of blood, and she urges others to donate blood once every 56 days!

This year's award recipients: (right to left) Kathy Coker, Bob Coker, Kathy Wisenbaker, B.J. Brown, Rosemarie Goodrum, Hilary Daniels, Gina Taylor, and Angela Rouse.  Not pictured are Jo Vaughn, David Vaughn and Keener Edison.

As pictured above, this year's awards went to: 

Administrative Office Volunteers of the Year: Rosemarie Goodrum & Kathy Wisenbaker

Biomedical Services Volunteer of the Year: Gina Taylor

Biomedical Services Volunteer Recognition: Keener Edison

Disaster Response Services New Volunteer of the Year: B.J. Brown

Disaster Response Volunteer of the Year: Mary Jane Phillips

Disaster Response Services Mauldin Award: Bob & Kathy Coker

Health & Safety Services Instructor of the Year: Hilary Daniels

Health & Safety Volunteer of the Year: Angela Rouse

Maxine Harper Award: David & Jo Vaughn 

A big thank you goes out to Carrabba's Italian Grill, which supplied a great meal during the Red Cross East Georgia Chapter's 2011 Annual Meeting and Volunteer Recognition Banquet.