AUSTIN, Texas — The only blood bank in Central Texas needs your help – more people moving in means more blood will be needed.
"It's extremely important because it's life-saving in many situations," says Phillip Lybrand of non-profit group We Are Blood.
The group is saving lives through blood drives.
"We provide blood for hospitals, emergency services, cancer treatment, etcetera," says Lybrand.
With the boom in population, the blood bank is in dire need of more blood donations.
"More than half of the blood we take in comes form the mobile bus drives," Lybrand says. "Having additional buses would be very valuable to us."
The non-profit is looking to buy a brand-new tour bus, costing about $300,000
We Are Blood currently has four different tour buses that serve 10 counties in Central Texas.
It says with the growing number of people, it needs another one to help better serve the community.
"Just to keep up with demand, we need to see 200 donors every day," Lybrand says. "With more than half of the donors we see in our drives, a new bus would be extremely important."
"The group typically has about 100 blood drives per month," says Tom Meade, who is in charge of setting up the mobile donation blood drives.
"Adding another bus would allow us to put another team on the field and increase the number of blood donations we can get each day to help the community of Central Texas."
"If we would add an additional bus to the fleet, that could be an additional 4,000 donors every year," Lybrand says.
We Are Blood hopes to raise enough money to keep up with Central Texas' booming population.
If you are interested in donating, visit the organization's website.