Blood donations typically fall during the summer as the vacation season takes donors away from their communities for a week or two. But, for the past 50 years, San Diego has been able to tap a superpower, getting some of the thousands who attend Comic-Con International to fit blood donations into their conference schedule. And, keeping with the event\u2019s swag tradition, there is always some sort of perk involved. This year, donors received a limited edition Spider-Man T-shirt.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s Robert A. Heinlein Blood Drive, which has occurred every year since 1977 and is named after the American science fiction author of \u201cStranger in a Strange Land\u201d and \u201cStarship Troopers,\u201d was an especially productive drive, with the San Diego Blood Bank announcing that its workers collected more than 3,500 pints of blood during the five-day run of Comic-Con 2026. Reaching this stretch goal, noted Douglas Morton, the organization\u2019s executive officer, was particularly satisfying as a commemoration of Comic-Con\u2019s 50th anniversary. The blood bank has asked for donations every year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat it allows us to do is really have a good cushion,\u201d Morton said. \u201cBut we never want to tell people \u2018don\u2019t donate because we have enough.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Blood, he noted, lasts on the shelf for 35 to 42 days, and the blood bank sends a few thousand units to its clients every week.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re always trying to balance the message,\u201d Morton said. \u201cYes, the great donors at Comic-Con have helped, but let\u2019s not stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
In fact, other areas that do not have a perennial July donation opportunity that brings more than 100,000 visitors to town are feeling the pinch. The American Red Cross put out an urgent call<\/a> for donations Monday, notifying the public of what it called its \u201csecond-ever national blood supply crisis,\u201d stating that donations \u201chave fallen to a four-year summer low.\u201d<\/p>\n Local supply figures for Red Cross of San Diego and Imperial Counties, which has contracts with several local medical providers, were not available as of Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n Anyone able to donate can make an appointment at redcrossblood.org<\/a> or by calling (800) RED-CROSS. San Diego Blood Bank is also collecting and still has a limited inventory of those Spider-Man T-shirts available. Appointments can be made at\u00a0sandiegobloodbank.org\/donate<\/a> or by calling 619-400-8251.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Blood donations typically fall during the summer as the vacation season takes donors away from their communities for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,71831,23,100,74,84,76,75,1696],"class_list":["post-414575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-california","tag-comic-con","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}