Fund Development

Strong Communities Are Built On Safe Blood. As a non-profit organization, Miller-Keystone Blood Center relies on the generosity of community businesses and individuals to help us achieve our goals and remain true to our mission statement. We face the enormous challenge of maintaining a safe and adequate community blood supply to serve the patients in our region. Capital needs have grown in recent years because of new blood testing regulations, set forth by the FDA, which require new technology, space and laboratory equipment. We have an obligation, to help save and sustain lives by providing a safe supply of blood, blood components and related services.  Above all, we are privileged to have volunteer blood donors who roll up their sleeves to provide the community with the gift of life, and we remain grateful to all the volunteers who donate their time or talent to ensure a safe and productive blood center. 

Development Department/Project Updates

We would like to take this opportunity to update you on some exciting projects taking place here at Miller-Keystone Blood Center (MKBC)!

• First, we are pleased to announce an exciting activity that we recently participated in for the first time, the Highmark Walk for a Healthy Community.  The Walk for a Healthy Community, presented by Highmark Blue Shield, benefited 17 worthy health and human service agencies in the Lehigh Valley. Since Highmark Blue Shield fully underwrites the cost of the walk, 100 percent of the money raised by walkers supports the 17 participating organizations.  We participated in the walk because it provided a great opportunity to interact with the community and raise funds to support our life-saving mission and vital programs.  Our first year participating proved to be a success; we are happy to report that we had 79 walkers who helped raise over $6,100 for Miller-Keystone Blood Center!  Enormous thanks to our dedicated walkers and Highmark Blue Shield.  We hope to see everyone again next year.

• Another project that we continue to focus our efforts on is our Endowment Fund.  A few years ago we launched a campaign to raise the initial seed money to kick off the endowment fund, which serves as an important resource to ensure the continued viability of our organization.  All gifts to our endowment fund through the purchase of a leaf, butterfly or tree trunk plaque is a gift to your community over and over again.  All monies deposited in this fund are invested and continue to grow.  The interest on this money is available to use for pressing service programs and technology needs, but the money you donate stays intact. There can be no more rewarding gift than knowing that you will be ensuring that your community Blood Center will always be here.  FOR LIFE.

• This year we successfully raised $7,000 for the My Blood, Your Blood (MBYB) educational program.  It is with sincere enthusiasm that we update you on the further expansion of our MBYB educational program, which has rapidly spread throughout Northampton, Lehigh and Berks Counties. Last year we reached over 1,100 students and this year we reached over 2,400 students!  Our goal for next school year is to reach 3,000+ students!  MBYB is a health/science education program that teaches students, grades 3 – 12, about blood biology, the relevance of blood to one’s health and the importance of blood donation.  We at MKBC consider this to be a paramount project because not only does it provide us an opportunity to give back to the communities we so happily serve by reinforcing classroom curriculum, but it also provides a means for MKBC to recruit the blood donors of tomorrow – a requisite task to ensure that our region always has access to life saving blood products.  It costs about $800 per group to present the program.

• A safe and adequate community blood supply is essential to practicing modern medicine. To ensure the safest blood products possible, Miller-Keystone Blood Center (MKBC) screens all donations through an extensive battery of testing before they are provided to our area hospitals. MKBC has one centralized laboratory facility where we perform approximately 13 tests on every unit of donated blood, regardless of where in our vast service area that blood was collected. Many of these tests are for infectious diseases, and should any yield questionable results, the Blood Center will confidentially notify the donor to recommend any follow-up action.

It is necessary for MKBC to screen for various diseases because many are asymptomatic, meaning that someone who may be infected might not experience any symptoms, and therefore not be aware that they are carrying a transmittable disease. The only way to alert these individuals of their condition is to screen for common blood-borne diseases. Ultimately, screening our volunteer blood donors allows MKBC to identify and destroy potentially infectious blood before it is given to patients such as trauma victims, cancer patients, burn victims, surgical patients, premature babies and many others.

MKBC will purchase a PRISM blood-testing system from Abbott Diagnostics at a total cost of $450,225.00. The current project plan anticipates the instrument to be built in September 2009, with an implementation date to follow, based upon the duration of actual assembly time and validation procedures.  We hope to have the system up and running by late winter.

• In fiscal year 2007/08 MKBC provided over 161,000 units of blood products to our hospitals and other healthcare facilities. Over half – about 60 percent – of the units that we provided were collected at mobile blood drives (both bloodmobile visits and mobile donation setups). Over 1,500 host groups sponsored more than 2,000 blood drives during fiscal year 2007/08. These statistics exemplify the crucial role that mobile blood drives play in collecting our region’s necessary blood reserves. It is estimated that an additional 4,600 units of blood are required each year to ensure the health of our local citizens. To continually meet the increasing need for blood products, MKBC must replace outdated and worn out mobile blood drive equipment, most notably donor beds, storage cabinets and privacy screens. Miller-Keystone Blood Center will purchase mobile blood drive equipment in packages that can easily be allocated to our various equipment trucks. Each package will include:

  • 1 set of donor beds (3 individual beds with carrier)

  • 2 storage cabinets

  • 1 set of privacy screens (set of 4 two-panel screens with transport bag)

MKBC has 1 large equipment transport truck, 2 small equipment transport trucks and 1 “sprinter.” The large truck is able to transport a 12 bed mobile setup; the small trucks can handle a 9 bed setup and the sprinter can carry equipment for a 6 bed setup. Each year, our large truck collects approximately 7,000 units of blood products and each of our small trucks collects about 5,000 units of blood products. All together, our 4 mobile equipment transport vehicles are responsible for collecting about 20,000 units of blood products annually from mobile blood drives held throughout our region.Equipment trucks are deployed depending upon the capacity needs of the host organization. If a mobile drive is to be held at a large business with many employees, has ample setup space and a large number of registered donors, a large truck will be called upon to provide a 12 bed setup. Accordingly, a small church may only have the capacity for a small-scale drive that only can accommodate a 6 bed setup. Regardless of the equipment needs for each blood drive, one variable remains important across the board – the condition of the mobile drive equipment.

The most vital equipment needs for on-site mobile blood drives are the donor beds, storage cabinets and privacy screens; since they are used the most, they must be replaced most often. Equipment is constantly being replaced on a rolling basis as pieces are deemed defunct. Replacement trends indicate that it is most efficient for MKBC to purchase mobile drive equipment in packages that can be distributed evenly to our various transport vehicles. By bundling the equipment we are better able to track equipment age and deterioration rate. The total cost for each equipment package described above is $3,625. 

For more information, click here or contact Sandra D. Thomas,

Director of Development,at 800-223-6667, ext. 292,

or develop@hcsc.org.

Saving Lives... One Pint at a Time!

Miller-Keystone Blood Center Sole Supplier of Blood to Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Chester, Lehigh, Luzerne, Montgomery, Northampton and Schuylkill (PA) and Warren (NJ) counties.

An Independent, Not-For-Profit 501(c)3 community organization, Miller-Keystone Blood Center is an affiliate of Hospital Central Services, Inc.