On April 2, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an updated guidance regarding blood donation deferrals for a number of risk factors, including travel to malaria-risk regions, tattoos, and risk of transmission of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) and HIV (which includes guidance around men who have sex with men). These changes, which are based…

Notice to Donor Regarding “Shelter-in-Place” A “shelter in place” order was issued on March 16 for for San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Marin, Contra Costa and Alameda counties. We understand that this is a time of great uncertainty and so we want to assure you that, as a health care organization, we are taking…

In May of 2013, Nicole Porto was thriving in all aspects of life. She had built up a life for herself that she was proud of. Physically, she had been training for the Brooklyn Half Marathon and felt extremely strong; socially, she had a great group of friends in her home of New York; and…

When Rachel Ren* was a junior, she was thrilled at the opportunity to give blood at her high school’s SBC mobile drive. Rachel had never had an experience with blood donation before — never had a family member need blood that she could remember, never needed blood herself — but she felt called to help….

Stanford Blood Center milestone donors are an extremely dedicated group, with all milestone donors having given blood at SBC at least 100 times. Ron Mancini hit his 400th donation milestone at our Menlo Park center last month. In celebration, Ross Coyle, Public Relations Officer, interviewed Ron about his motivation and experiences with giving blood. What does…

It’s time for your winter Volunteer Spotlight! Stanford Blood Center (SBC) is incredibly thankful for our volunteers, who play a very important role in our health care community. It is our pleasure to introduce one of our wonderful helpers, Jennifer Harris.   Why do you volunteer at SBC? I believe in the importance of volunteering…

Great news! Our new donor/coordinator portal (sbcdonor.org) is now live! This redesigned portal will have all of your same information but with an interface that is cleaner and easier to use on both computers and mobile devices. Some of the updated features include: A simple process for making appointments and finding nearby blood drives Easy...

Here at SBC, we love to celebrate our incredible milestone donors. Earlier this month, Tom Welch made his 600th donation at the South Bay center. Ross Coyle, Public Relations Officer, interviewed the San Jose resident about what inspires him to donate blood and what keeps him coming back all these years. What does your 600th blood donation…

Redeeming your movie ticket online is easy! First, go to cinemark.com, select the movie you want to see, select where you want to sit and add a ticket to your cart. This should activate the payment screen, which appears as a bar on the right side of the page. Looking at this gray bar, you…

HOW BLOOD DONORS SUPPORTED A 15-YEAR-OLD’S LIVE-SAVING OPEN-HEART SURGERY On October 4, 2014, Nick Farrell* was riding high celebrating a momentous occasion: his 15th birthday. One week later, on October 11, he was grappling with a very different life-altering event: a critical surgery to fix the large hole in his heart. Though Nick and his…

Vicky Santos, Lead Laboratory Technician, returned to SBC in September after seven months overseas with the military. Krista Thomas, Communications Strategist, interviewed Vicky about this experience and her motivations to serve. Q: When did you first enlist and where and when did you serve? A: I enlisted in 2007 with the US Air Force. I…

Although the summer may be winding down, mosquito season is still upon us. Typically, the season goes from April to November in the Bay Area. This summer, Stanford Blood Center received quite a few interesting questions from blood donors about mosquitos. We thought we’d take a moment to compile our answers to those questions and,…