SALT LAKE CITY — Utah hospitals are facing a critical need for blood right now.
So much so that a local company, ARUP Blood Services, is throwing Taylor Swift tickets into a raffle as an incentive for people to donate.
“The need for more, more blood is growing,” said Deb Jordan, Director of Community Relations at ARUP Blood Services. “And so we're constantly trying to find new donors, ways to inspire donors.”
Jordan says it’s been a cruel summer in getting volunteers through the doors to donate blood.
“Transfusions never take a vacation. So while everyone is out playing in the summer and on vacation, the hospital is busy every single day, the emergency rooms, the operation rooms, they're busy every single day. So we are having a hard time keeping up with that demand,” Jordan said.
Which is why they’re upping their incentive to donate by throwing two Taylor Swift tickets into a raffle.
“The summer before we gave out concert tickets but nothing to this magnitude,” Jordan said.
Jordan and her team are hoping to enchant a certain group in particular.
“High schools are our life force in fall,” Jordan said. “So now that the high school is back, it's the perfect time for us. We want to inspire high school kids to donate blood and save lives.”
Jordan says with Utah's rapidly increasing population, the demand for blood has spiked at hospitals like the University of Utah Hospital and the Huntsman Cancer Institute.
“We need about 75 donors a day to come through our doors in order to keep the stock, the shelves stocked at the hospital,” Jordan said.
Summer travel aside, Jordan says it’s been harder to convince people to donate.
“You know, it's a volunteer donor. It's someone who's not getting paid. It's someone who's doing it on their own time,” she said. “And after COVID, a lot of people are still working from home. So now they have to kind of go out of their way a little bit to find us and to come through our doors.”
Jordan says she hopes the fun raffle encourages people to be fearless and donate – if not for the chance at seeing Taylor Swift – for the chance to save a life.
“They might not realize it, but there is no substitution for human blood,” Jordan said. “So having high school kids, having high school students, college students donate really is a godsend to us.”
