By Bonnie Culverhouse
City of Minden’s Fire and Police departments are rolling up their sleeves to help the community, and they are all hoping the community will roll up its sleeves to help them.
Minden Civic Center is the spot for LifeShare Blood Center’s Cuffs & Hoses Blood Drive. Blood will be drawn between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. Wednesday, June 12.
Cuffs and Hoses is a blood drive/competition that is held each summer, but according to LifeShare’s Patricia Norred, this year is a bit different.
“We are offering a trophy for the winner, whereas in the past there were no clear ‘winners’ except the recipients of the blood donations,” Norred said. “We are working to make it a fun competition for the whole community.”
When donors donate, they will let the techs know if they are donating for the FD or the PD.
“We hope this will inspire the community to come out and show support for their local first responders, knowing they are saving many lives while doing so, one unit of blood will save an average of three lives,” she added.
In order to have a trophy presented, each department must collect more than their set donor goal, in the case of Minden, each department is competing to collect more than 10 units of blood each.
“Our firefighters and police officers put their lives on the line every day to ensure the protection of life and property,” said Minden Fire Chief Brian Williams. “They do this not for the paycheck they receive but for desire to serve the public. This blood drive is the community’s opportunity to give back to our local heroes by their lifesaving blood donations in their honor.”
“In the future, we want the departments to look forward to this competition and have a friendly rivalry over who will hold the trophy for the next year,” Norred said. “We feel this can also be a sense of pride for each department by their ability to motivate their community to save lives with them by donating blood.”
Williams agreed, “but at the same time it is a wonderful opportunity for our firefighters, not just in Minden, to step up and donate blood. I encourage all our first responders, firefighters, police, and EMS to join the members of our community on June 12 to give. Your donation can be used to help an accident victim, a surgery patient, or someone fighting cancer. Your donation can help save someone’s life. I would just like to encourage everyone to come out and support this worthwhile cause that assists LifeShare Blood Centers in meeting the needs of our community.
“I’m hoping Fire will beat Police in the number of donations, and I’m confident our firefighters can pull it off just as we have in the past!” he concluded.
Minden Police Chief Jared McIver challenged the Fire Department to bring it on.
“Get ready, Minden,” McIver said. “The Police Department is set to ‘cuff’ the competition and ‘hose’ down the Fire Department in the Cuffs & Hoses blood drive showdown!”