Oklahoma Blood Institute has experienced many challenges in the last few years.  First, pandemic restrictions deeply impacted the blood supply, as most donors were not allowed to leave their houses to donate. Mobile blood drives, which are the largest source of blood collections and result in 70 percent of our blood supply, were cancelled on a mass scale.

As the country is well into the third year of the pandemic, fewer donors are giving than in the pre-pandemic world as many companies continue to allow employees to work from home, which has resulted in fewer mobile blood drives. But demand for blood has never been higher. It takes nearly 1,200 donors a day to meet the needs of the hospitals served by our blood centers.

Oklahoma Blood Institute has launched a new program, called Mission Express, that allows for smaller groups to come together and donate blood.

The program enables remote organizations and smaller companies who can’t support a mobile blood drive at their own worksite to instead host a group blood drive at their local donor center. There is no minimum number of donors needed to participate.

For information, email [email protected]. Oklahoma Blood Institute is the sixth-largest independent blood center in the nation, supplying more than 90% of Oklahoma’s blood supply to over 160 hospitals and medical facilities. This latest grant cycle brings the total for local donations to over $205 million since inception.