Officials with Our Blood Institute visit the Malvern Lions Club

The Malvern Lions Club was fortunate to have associates with Our Blood Institute (OBI), also referred to as the Arkansas Blood Institute, join them for their weekly meeting on Tuesday at the First Baptist Church Family Lite Center.

Carvin Brown, Jr., executive director for the tri-state blood bank/distribution service, was accompanied by Lori Erickson, account executive for OBI’s Hot Springs office. Brown was invited to the meeting by local Lion Club member, Bart Harrington.

Before getting down to the real business at hand, Brown remarked that he was familiar with the good work Lions Club members do, as his wife was the past President of her local Lions Club in Oklahoma before the couple relocated to Arkansas.

Brown began by sharing his organization’s mission: “To be the donor-to-patient lifeline, providing our communities and medical partners security by meeting transfusion and health care needs.” He continued by providing some sad facts about the state of blood donations in Arkansas, as well as OBI’s other areas of operation in parts of Oklahoma and Texas.

Brown shared that OBI has a team that is on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, just to answer any calls that may come in from medical facilities that are in quick need of blood. It takes over 1,200 units of blood every day to sustain the local need, according to literature Brown provided to the group in attendance. Someone in OBI’s realm of distribution needs blood an average of every two seconds. The good news is that a single donation, which takes less than an hour to complete, can save up to three lives.

Read the full story in Friday’s Aug. 18 newspaper edition.