Public Works Hosts Blood Drive

Thursday, April 13th, 2023

When you think of lifesavers, you might think first of firefighters or police officers. But this week, Dalton's Public Works Department got into the life-saving business, too, hosting a blood drive on Wednesday at their headquarters on Elm Street. The drive helped Blood Assurance meet its commitment for blood donations for Hamilton Medical Center. 

"The way I understand it is that historically, Public Works has done blood drives," said Public Works director Chad Townsend, who joined the department last year. "(Blood Assurance) asked if it was something we’d be interested in helping them with and obviously we were, we’d love to help in any way we can in that sort of area. So we welcomed them open arms and pushed the word out and tried to get as many donors as possible signed up as we could."

Caption: The Blood Assurance "Blood Brigade" bus was parked at Dalton Public Works on Wednesday, April 12th

Blood Assurance parked one of their donation buses at Public Works on Wednesday afternoon from noon until 3 pm. Employees of both the Public Works department and the Dalton Municipal Court donated blood. 

"We had several of the ladies from municipal court donated as well, we had a pretty good turnout," Townsend said. "We certainly surpassed the expectation or the commitment that (Blood Assurance) had made to the hospital so we were happy that we were able to help."

One blood donation can potentiall save as many as three lives. Blood donations are always needed, and you can contact Blood Assurance to help by visiting their website at https://www.bloodassurance.org/