Christiana Care Takes Top Honors in Summer Blood Challenge

Christiana Care Takes Top Honors in Summer Blood Challenge

woman and two men with trophy
Accepting the Summer Blood Challenge award on behalf of Christiana Care is Teresa Cathell, assistant to the COO. At left is Dick Pearce, chairman of the Executive Board of Directors of the Blood Bank of Delmarva, and Bob Travis, Blood Bank CEO.

Christiana Care won top honors in the 2010 Blood Bank of Delmarva’s Summer Blood Challenge with the highest overall number of blood donations. Christiana Care also took top place in the Extra Large Employer category.

This is the seventh year in a row Christiana Care has won the challenge. Christiana Care recruited 599 blood donors and 174 new Blood Bank members.

The challenge is a competition among employers to recruit the most Blood Bank members and donors during the summer. It helps raise awareness of the need for blood at a time when vacations and outdoor activities often contribute to shortages in many areas of the country.

At an awards ceremony Sept . 21 at the Hilton Christiana/Wilmington, the Blood Bank honored Wendy Felts, a nurse practitioner in the neonatal intensive-care unit, for the most individual blood donations. She donated every two weeks. She has been a top donor in the challenge three of the last four years. Since becoming a Blood Bank member in 1986, she has donated 19 gallons of blood.

“I never really consider a reason to donate,” she said. “It’s just a need I can help fill. I always ask my colleagues whenever we order blood for an infant if they are willing to donate, for it is not something that can be made or bought, and it is only available through the generosity of so many people who are willing to take the time to donate.”

She wasn’t the only representative from Christiana Care recognized at the ceremony. Internal medicine resident Courtney Ackerman, M.D., won a $500 Visa gift card in a randomly selected grand-prize giveaway.

This year 171 local employers participated, resulting in 7,150 blood donations and 1,980 new Blood Bank members. That’s a blood donation increase of 17 percent over last year’s competition.

Last year Christiana Care received 43,134 blood products from the Blood Bank of Delmarva. That includes 25,279 units of packed red blood cells, 9,000 units of fresh frozen plasma and nearly 6,000 units of platelets

For more information, visit Blood Bank of Delmarva.

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