On our morning show today from WRCO in the first part, we're going to talk about the American Red Cross a little bit later on, a special event that has been going on at Highland schools for a number of years in the studio for the first part of the morning show today, Kyle Kriegel, executive director of the American Red Cross Southwest Wisconsin chapter and local coordinator of the local blood drive here for the American Red Cross, Bob Shearer, who is here today as well.
Bob, we're coming up on another event here in the community, aren't we?
Oh, yes.
It's going to be a fun time.
I'm still wishing we had 100 instead of what we got.
We got 84 right now.
That's not bad though, is it?
No.
I mean, from some, sometimes it's less than that
too.
Oh yeah, sometimes it's down to 58.
What makes this one special next Wednesday?
I think it's kind of the turkey and stuffing sandwiches
Oh turkey and stuffing sandwiches.
That's kind of a tradition this time of year, isn't it?
Yes, it is.
Yeah, so we look forward to that
I won't bring cranberries into
it.
Oh, okay Leave those out.
All right.
Good morning.
Kyle.
Good to see you.
Good morning.
Glad to be here.
Yeah, awesome And November is an important month to kind of get the word out to people about giving blood,
right?
It absolutely is a you know
When we, there's, you know, summertime, we've certainly saw a decline and we get nervous about the holidays as well because a lot of people are traveling, they're doing their Christmas shopping.
And so we see a drop off in donations.
And so that's why it's so important for folks to come out and donate at this time of the year.
Cause we have to keep the blood supply constant.
I do just want to highlight too, like for November this month, we are actually providing a free service along.
If so, if you come and donate blood,
We'll do your A1C testing, so to find out if you're pre-diabetic.
So it's a free service that we include this month to our donors.
It's just a way to say thank you and encourage folks to come out.
We also do have some other things that we're including with that.
Certainly Bob's talking about the turkey.
We do have some of those at some of our drives.
But also, the week during Thanksgiving, we're partnering nationally with the Wheel of Fortune.
So we're actually going to have a Wheel of Fortune mug that you can get if you donate blood.
that along with other incentives.
So really encouraging folks to come out and donate blood in November and December.
They don't necessarily do it for the swag, but you know, it's kind of cool when you do that.
Absolutely.
And just a few things for some blood facts for folks, you know, one in seven patients entering a hospital will need a blood transfusion.
You can donate blood every 56 days, six times a year.
Why patients need blood?
You know, a lot of people, you know, with their fighting cancer, there could be childbirth complications, trauma, sickle cell disease, surgeries and transplants.
And that's what blood is needed.
much more.
And just another thing to point out, only three out of a hundred Americans donate blood.
That's not enough.
So we need more people to come out and donate.
We really especially need those first time donors to come out and join us in donating blood to help those that may need a blood donation.
I had no idea that the numbers were that low.
They are.
And even, you know, the last, you know, several decades we've seen a decline in blood donors.
And so, and that's nationally.
And so that's why we're so strongly urging folks to come out and become blood donors, bring a family member, a friend, a colleague, make it a fun activity to come out and donate.
Yeah, definitely.
As you look at some other things going on, and certainly we'd be remiss if we didn't mention today is
Veterans Day.
And let's talk a little bit about the American Red Cross.
You've also supported veterans through the years.
Veterans and active duty military members.
And that's what a lot of folks don't realize that when a service member, wherever they are in the world and their family is here in our community and there is an emergency that happens, they call the Red Cross.
We verify that information and we send it to wherever that service member is in the world.
We do that free.
It's a free service that we do.
We are also uniquely
as an organization, it's us in the USO.
We are overseas at every single base.
They call it CONUS and OCONUS.
So wherever in the world there is a base, the Red Cross is at.
And even here in the United States, we work a lot with our bases and our active duty members.
We do things more than just being there for those emergency communications.
We also have coping with deployments.
We have reconnection workshops.
animal visitation programs.
We've got the animal visitation dogs to be there.
You know, we're there at yellow ribbon events and we do a lot of information and referral and we do this with all of our volunteers and few staff to help make that happen.
We're there to help our servicemen and women wherever they are from enlistment to veterans.
So we've got you and we're there to help support you.
Yeah, you've made a career out of this.
I think you're coming up on about 30 years with the organization, aren't you?
Next year.
Next year film.
Congratulations.
All in Wisconsin, so yeah.
That's amazing.
Yeah.
Great time.
This job has been very enjoyable and helping people and seeing our work that we do in our communities is very rewarding.
So, not only have you made it a career, but you've also made it a career trying to encourage others to join and volunteer.
It's got to be rewarding, a thing just to be a volunteer, isn't
it?
Yeah, we've got great volunteers that we work with, like Bob here, to help us with our local blood drives.
Volunteers that, you know, they're there whenever there's like a house fire and, you know, someone needs help, whether it's food, shelter, clothing.
We got volunteers that are responding to house fires.
Volunteers that are there, as I mentioned, with the blood drives, volunteers to help us with our
service to our military members.
And so that's why two things I want to just mention, we're always looking for volunteers.
And right now the two volunteers that we most need are disaster responders.
So those are people that we train up and respond to single family house fires.
And then also blood donor ambassadors.
So they're the folks that when you go to the Bob's blood drive, they're there to meet you and greet you and sign you in and get you all squared away to donate.
So those are our two top positions we're looking for.
And that's
all throughout Wisconsin.
I also want to take a moment as well.
we are in the, we're looking for hero nominations.
So we want to know and celebrate those people that are out there making a difference in our community, whether it's, you know, just shoveling, you know, we're right now raking leaves as a big thing, but just, you know, helping your neighbor, helping neighbor.
We've got a ceremony that we have in the spring.
It's in Madison, but we're looking for hero nominations now through November 20th, and you can go to redcross.org forward slash Wisconsin heroes and make a nomination.
We have five different categories.
It's community impact, emergency responder, military hero, and what a great day to nominate a military hero.
Also looking for volunteer hero and blood hero.
So those are our different categories.
You don't have to write a novel.
it could just be a couple of paragraphs just kind of talking about why that person is important and should be recognized for the great work that they're doing.
Can you give us an example of some of the past hero winners or any stories that come to mind Kyle?
Yeah, last year we had, it was just so breathtaking.
We had a family that was rescued by a neighbor had seen that their house was on fire.
It was actually
four boys and they over the July 4th holiday, their neighbor's house was on fire and they rushed into the house and pulled the two elderly folks out and saved their lives.
And just to honor folks like that, it's so, wow, you're just like, we live in such a great, a lot of negative things, but when you hear stories like that and just the great things that people do, step up and help.
Another one that I'll share.
that really was touching for me as well, was we had to celebrate a woman, her and her daughter were in a cafe in downtown Madison, and she was a school teacher.
She had not taken CPR probably 20 years, but someone had collapsed, a gentleman had collapsed in the coffee shop, and she went right to work.
you know, checked him matri, he was breathing, he stopped breathing, she performed CPR while the paramedics were there.
And because of her quick action, she saved this gentleman's life and I know that they've become friends ever since that time.
So stories like that just, you know, we want to make sure that those books are recognized and honored and said, hey, thank you for that and to know that they're there.
And she just joked and she said,
Kyle, I have not done CPR since I took babysitter training.
And so it had been so long that she had taken the training.
She said, but it just came back to me.
I knew what to do.
And so we celebrated her.
She also had later on, she said, I also signed up.
She was a school teacher.
She said, I signed up for the first day in CPR class.
about a month afterwards, but her and that person that she saved, both of their families now are very good friends.
That's an amazing story.
I mean, I think the Red Cross could probably write a book on some of those stories because they're very inspiring.
Yeah.
And that's why we want to, like I said, we know there are more out there and we want to make sure that folks, you know, submit those stories to us so that we can honor these folks properly and just say thank you for being there in our communities.
Do they get a nice plaque to
hang them on?
They get actually a nice award.
We usually kind of do a little bit of a story and then we do post those up on our Red Cross YouTube channel.
Wonderful.
Bob, let's talk about volunteers.
You get a lot of people to help you out at your local drives, don't you?
Yeah, I get quite a few.
I think we got nine altogether.
We're still looking for more help.
Always.
And I want to make a nice little announcement about a very good helper that we had.
She won't be helping us for a while.
the last blood drive she fell in the kitchen and broke her kneecap and I'm gonna mess her be in there because she was always a great help her and her friend Eva Linda Wallace is her name that fell and broke her kneecap that would be tied all balls mom
she'll be back soon though I think
well she's hoping now
Come and visit we told her to come and visit and just sit and talk if you want
You could always use help setting up and tearing down
to yes We have Ryan's route Has been nice enough to come out well now since school started they can't come out in the mornings and help but at our closing times they come out and help tear down and
and put stuff away, which only takes 25 minutes if you got about six people.
What time would people need to be there to volunteer in the morning?
8.30, even though the guys from Red Cross don't get there until 10.30, but I'd like to get everything set up or at least so that way.
If I have to find something else I got to get done around the community center for our blood drive, then
I've got a couple hours to play in there.
So you set up some chairs and some tables?
Yes, and they are heavy tables.
And it takes two people to usually pull them off that cart and carry them over to set them up.
And then them chairs is where what caused Linda's fall.
She caught the background or the backside of it.
and went down.
Yeah, it's too bad.
Plus Phil, Bob would probably like to have folks there to kind of make sure that the food's ready because I know that they got a lot of food, they got a big feed that they're going to be putting on for our donors next week.
And we're
using two crockpops this year for the turkey and stuff.
That sounds good.
That's only a week away.
It
seems
like, and that'll be a week away from Thanksgiving too.
Hard to believe it's that time of year.
Oh, God.
Yes.
Yeah.
So people have signed up.
You said so far, but, uh, you'd like to have a few more.
Oh, yes.
I would love to see it back up into the hundred or a hundred and 20, uh, anyways, from 120 to whatever, just keep coming.
Do you, you obviously accept walk-ins.
You get very
many of those.
We do accept walk-ins.
If there's openings, the charge nurse will let us know.
If there's an opening, if a person comes in and wants to give blood that has not called Red Cross to sign up.
So how much time should people allow if they're giving blood?
They've never done it before and they kind of need to know.
Well,
it's typically about an hour.
Yeah.
And again,
Bob's right, we do take walk-ins.
Bob, I correct me if I'm wrong, but we open up at 11 and we go till, what is it, 5?
1130 to 530.
1130 to 530.
Ideally, the best way to do it is if you can go online and make an appointment, but certainly, as Bob said, walk-ins are
welcome.
Kyle, what are the advantages?
We always talk about the Red Cross blood donor app.
What are the advantages of downloading that?
Well, a couple of things.
One, if you do have the blood donor app, you will get your A1C testing information sent back to you through the app.
The other cool feature that I've always liked about it is if you wanted to see where your blood donation goes, it's fascinating to see.
You know, a lot of times, you know, we, you know,
local hospitals and stuff but some people if you know returning on their blood type it could go anywhere in the U.S.
I've talked to many people either Chicago or out east and so I think a lot of people kind of like to like oh my blood donation really made a difference it's helped somebody up in this community you know another part of the country so that's another thing that we kind of like to see on the app.
Also just kind of tracks your blood appointments that you've done and so just a lot of other cool features on there.
I know we give some of those, those pins for people that have been outstanding donors through the years.
What's the highest one that, that you ever recall?
Ooh, I just ran across the gentleman.
Now he donates not only whole blood, but also he donates plasma.
So it's, it's a little bit different, but it was five gallons.
Wow.
But with plasma, it's, it's calculated a little bit differently.
But I was, this guy had been donating since high school and just,
It had been an irregular occurrence to him all throughout his life, and we're celebrating him and his tremendous amount of donations.
Yeah.
If everybody was like him, you wouldn't have to have as many drives, would you?
That's true.
That's true.
But, you know, again, we need all different types of blood.
You know, oposs is probably the most needed, but any type of blood is needed at this point.
And as I said, this time of the year going into the holidays,
we need everybody that can donate to come out.
How long does blood last before it expires?
Well, that all depends, but I mean, usually there is a shelf life.
Um, again, it depends what type of blood it, whether it's whole blood plasma.
So there's, there's different times there, um, on the shelf, but we really try to get that out within seven days, you know, to, to get that out, to turn that around to hospitals.
Yeah.
Very important this time of year.
Cause again, I think a lot of times, you know, the hustle and bustle of the holidays and everything, uh,
well, and the need there too.
So the need is there.
Yeah.
Very much so.
And if you want to really get in to see what all Red Cross does, you ought to go down to the Subwaygan Red Cross office and take a tour through their lab.
That is very interesting.
So what he's, he's absolutely right.
So,
When the blood is collected in Wisconsin, it comes to Madison on our tour Westside location, and then it's processed, and then it goes back out to hospitals.
I seen a gal, she'd been there, well, when I went through that lab, she'd been there seven years, I think she said at that time, and she was a little short gal.
I don't think she's much taller than that.
but she gets in there and she just handles them bags like as if she could do a hundred or a hundred and twenty of them or a hundred and fifty of them in a day without no problem at
all.
So she gets it labeled and ships it out then?
Yeah yeah yeah and you know we're one of the top
in the country, blood collection sites.
And so we have a lot of blood that goes through there and we want to make sure that we get that out to the hospitals to make sure that patients that need it get it.
Indeed.
Well, you know, we know that there will be emergencies coming up and the Red Cross will be on call, you know, in the coming days, weeks and months too.
Phil, one more thing I did want to also add too.
I don't like to necessarily say this, but we are heading into heating season with the winter season just to
upon us.
One of the things that the Red Cross also does offer for free to the community.
You know, we just had a few weeks ago, daylight savings time, where we, you know, the clocks fell back.
We also do provide smoke alarm installations.
We've got teams of volunteers that will go into your home and replace your smoke alarms and show you how they work, test them for you, and then also work with your developer.
emergency plan.
It's like if you have a fire in your home, making sure there's two exits, have a meeting place outside, identify some of the hazards in your home.
This is again a free service that the Red Cross provides.
We do this all throughout the year, but obviously now that we're heading into heating season, it's probably more important than ever to make sure you have a working smoke alarm.
You can go to redcross.org forward slash sound the alarm to make an appointment today.
Oh, wonderful.
Yeah, that's a sad story sometimes when you hear those stories that somebody didn't have a working smoke alarm and what not.
My wife has got it set up right now.
She can schedule appointments right now all the way up until next July.
Wonderful.
People that are planning ahead.
Yes.
Right.
And I would like to mention
A couple of very nice sponsors.
The sponsor I want to talk about the most is Quick Trip.
I went in, I do candy driver across.
And I send the money on down to Madison.
Every time I get a, well, anywhere from 100 to 300.
I was doing my candy drive this last weekend at Questrup, besides the family restaurant.
I'm going to be doing them every other Sunday.
And the guy came out to me Sunday morning.
I'm sitting there.
I just got through drinking a bottle of soda.
He goes, well, if you'd like a fountain drink, you go in there and get yourself a fountain drink.
And it'll be free on us.
I kind of sat back a little bit and says, no, I'm fine for right now.
McQuistrup doesn't offer a lot for Red Cross also.
They do a lot, absolutely.
And then, yeah, people donate for the drives, for the food as well.
Oh, yes.
We got Shribus for the yogurt, and we got Subway for cookies, and they're a great sponsor also.
And I've also talked with the pharmacy, family prescription center, Paul and I are good friends.
And he donated $100 a couple of months ago and says, I want to sponsor you.
You're one of the best coordinators I've seen in this town so far.
That was wonderful.
Nice for him to say.
What are you doing in your spare time, Bob?
Well, I'm a Kiwanis member now, and I'm also Walkwood Grace.
Active in your church, right?
Yes, and I'm very active in our church.
Our church right now, we just got through concrete in the driveway from the entrance all the way up to the back of the building.
And then next spring we are putting black top down in our parking lot instead of having gravel.
That's great.
Good to hear that.
You'd encourage people to start getting those reservations.
Let's see if we can get up to a hundred donors.
Oh, I would love to see that hundred donors
next next Wednesday, the 18th.
Kyle,
anything you want to add today?
Again, those hero nominations November 20th.
If you've got folks that you'd like to nominate and make sure that they get a.
recognition, please do that again, redcross.org forward slash heroes.
Wonderful.
Always good to see
you.
He's been very good to me.
Also
town taxi.
Okay.
Yes.
If I needed something and I couldn't pay for it right away.
Oh, we'll take you because Tony and Melissa are great people.
And right now I'm hoping for them to get a new van so that way they can continue their business a lot easier and hire another driver or two on.
Yep down the road.
All right.
Well, thanks guys.
We appreciate
you
coming in today You bet Bob share local coordinator for the Red Cross the blood drive again next Wednesday the 18th from 1130 until 530 and Kyle Kregel executive director of the American Red Cross Southwest Wisconsin chapter