American Samoa’s first community blood donor registry launched this month. Individuals, organizations and businesses have collaborated to create alofablood.org — a site that aims to ensure that whenever blood is needed there’s an ample supply of donors in the territory.
Alofa Blood is a registry whose purpose is to collect the names of compatible blood donors, and to contact them whenever there is a public call for whole blood in American Samoa.
South Seas Broadcasting General Manager Pauga Joey Cummings initiated the project in the wake of the illness of the late Sherry Sele, who needed urgent blood transfusions after being admitted to the hospital.
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Since the site was launched two weeks ago, 50 people have registered on alofablood.org. Pauga said, the registry is purely a community effort and not affiliated with the hospital. He explained that the goal is to organize the community’s response whenever our hospital makes the call for blood. He also assured that other than names, blood type and contact information no other information is disclosed or needed. The website is alofablood.org
Alofa Blood is a community service collaboration between South Seas Broadcasting and community service organizations Lions Club of Pago Pago, Rotary Club of Pago Pago and Rotaract Club of Pago Pago. Special acknowledgment goes to South Seas Digital’s Milo Amundsen for designing the site.
