Community event to honor African American donorship

BloodCenter of Wisconsin will host the Faith-Based and Healthcare Community Celebration luncheon on Wed., Jan. 30, 2013, at noon. It will be held at Milwaukee Youth Arts Center, 325 W. Walnut Street. The Community Celebration will honor African American donorship, which allows an individual to give the highly personal and unique gifts of blood, marrow, organs and tissue.

BloodCenter will recognize the winners of the 2012 Faith-Based Community Challenge at the luncheon. The Challenge encouraged friendly competition among area African American churches to inspire members to become blood donors, or to join the marrow and organ/tissue registries. Each winning congregation was invited to select a church member to receive a $1,500 college scholarship from BloodCenter of Wisconsin. The winning congregations are: New Testament Church, St. Matthew CME Church and Living Waters Church of God in Christ.

WISN-TV’s Portia Young will emcee the event. Bishop Darrell Hines, founder and pastor of Christian Faith Fellowship Church, will be the keynote speaker. Other speakers include Angela Gill, advocate for sickle cell anemia, and Richard Rogers, 2011 heart recipient and pastor of Living Waters Church of God in Christ.

Attendees of the Celebration will receive specially designed materials to share the message about the importance of donorship with congregations and health care organizations in the community. All participating churches will be recognized and appreciated at the Celebration for their support of BloodCenter of Wisconsin’s live-saving mission.

It is vital for African Americans to become donors of not just blood, but also marrow, organs and tissue, so that other African Americans have a better chance at recovery. The success rate of transfusions and transplants increase when these gifts come from members of the same ethnic background. “When African Americans donate, African Americans live” is the ongoing theme of the Faith-Based Community Challenge.

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Popular Interests In This Article: African Americans, BloodCenter, BloodCenter of Wisconsin, Donating Blood, Portia Young