Community Corner
Seaford Woman Helps Relieve Recent Blood Shortage
Local resident Mindy Davidson organizes blood drive with Runners Edge in Farmingdale to benefit the NY Blood Center.
At on Main Street in Farmingdale, you can get sneakers, sweats, power bars, anything you need to get you out on the road, running for good health. On Martin Luther King Day, customers gave a little something in return, in crimson red, rather than dollar bill green.
The store hosted a blood drive on the Martin Luther King holiday. The NY Blood Center's bloodmobile was stationed out back, for people to donate a bit of their time, and a bit of their potentially life-saving blood.
The drive was organized by Mindy Davidson, a Seaford resident and vice president of the Greater L.I. Running Club. Mindy's been a blood donor for 30 years, and decided after turning 50 last year to lead the charge to get others to give blood.
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"I have always felt that donating blood is something that's important to me and people need to realize should be important to them," Davidson said.
She spearheaded the drive through the NY Blood Center and was able to to hold it at Runners Edge. Davidson is friends with the owners, and she also manages the store's triathlon team, so getting members of the running community to donate at the store seemed like a natural fit.
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"We try to do things to help the community...other things than just sell running shoes," said Runners Edge co-owner Sue Cook.
Davidson says she was further spurned to organize a blood drive of her own, when two members of her triathlon team were involved in bicycle accidents, one of whom required 100 units of blood for his injuries. Also, several blood drives have been canceled with all the wicked weather that's hit our area. That led to a shortage of 2000 units.
"You never know when a friend or family member is going to have an illness that requires them to need a blood transfusion," Mindy said. "Why wait until something like that happens, why not just do it?"
Just do it. A familiar slogan for runners. It can be applied to blood donors too.
To find out how to donate blood, go to www.nybloodcenter.org. More blood drives are expected to be held at Runners Edge this year, located at 242 Main Street in Farmingdale.
