American Red Cross celebrates holiday season with blood drives

SUPERIOR, Wis. — The American Red Cross is hosting a special double-edition blood drive with their “Battle of the Badges” events.

The two-part blood drive, the second part of which taking place at First United Methodist Church in Duluth on Dec. 4, allows each person donating to vote for their favorite department of Twin Ports first responders, in a friendly competition to see who can drum up the most support for the good cause.

“Battle of the Badges is just a really exciting opportunity for people to come out and honor our police, sheriff, fire department, and our first responders (and) to give blood and show that we love what they’re doing, and (that) we appreciate what they do,” said Matthew Foor, a biomed account Manager with the Red Cross and one of the operators of the drives.

“We just need more people to help out,” said Foor.

Both of these drives are just the start of the Red Cross’ holiday events, with this year marking the debut of their special “12 Hours of Giving Blood Drives”.

“We are splitting it between two days, we’re not going to go 12 hours straight, but we’re pulling out all the stops,” said Foor. “We’re going to have live music, catered food, hourly door prizes, cookies, Santa is going to be there, so we can visit with people who have photograph opportunities.”

“It’s just going to be a lot of fun.”

The Red Cross is always accepting appointments for blood donation, and encourage you to donate if you can at their website.

Additionally, Fox 21 is excited to be the official media partner for the Red Cross’ upcoming “12 Hours of Giving Blood Drives”. Before the blood donation events, Fox 21 will be interviewing people whose lives have been changed for the better thanks to the Red Cross, in anticipation for the inaugural Northland edition of the event, which will take place on December 18th and 19th.