Blood bank opens in Wasilla with community support

WASILLA — Local blood donors once again have the opportunity to donate closer to home at the new Blood Bank of Alaska facility across from Walmart.

“We made a horrible mistake in closing down our Valley facility (before),” said nine-year Blood Bank board member Chris Mello.

Since the previous Wasilla collection center closed in 2009, donors have had to wait for mobile drives to arrive at Valley locations to give blood. Advertising for those drives wasn’t always efficient, and if a donor did show up, they might not be able to give blood in the available timeframe.

Blood Bank Director of Collections Wes Dahlgren said he’s received complaints from regular donors about the lack of a local facility since the 2009 closure — and that’s a good thing.

“When you don’t hear (complaints), that means they don’t care,” Dahlgren said.

But in the six-year blood bank drought, it became clear that Valley residents do care, and there are some “diehard donors” outside Anchorage, he said.

All donors are important, though, as volunteers are hospital patients’ only source of blood donations.

“They are doing us the favor,” said Blood Bank of Alaska CEO Bob Scanlon, of volunteers, at the grand opening of the Wasilla center Friday.

And it’s not just the Blood Bank that benefits. Mat-Su Regional Medical Center CEO John Lee said the local facility is “huge for the Valley.”

“(At) a hospital, there is always a need for blood products,” Lee said.

And, Scanlon pointed out, in the event of an hours-long highway closure like the one on the Glenn April 3, no one will have to worry about trying to transport blood north from the Anchorage headquarters to trauma patients at Mat-Su Regional.

Though the hospitals are “well stocked” with blood donations, Dahlgren said, certain circumstances may require an emergency issuance of blood from a collection center, such as the one in Anchorage.

The Wasilla blood bank will also provide new jobs to boost the economy and grow the community, Lee said.

Since the blood bank is a nonprofit, board members have raised money for facilities and equipment themselves, with the help of numerous private donors and other nonprofits, such as Matanuska Electric Association and Mat-Su Health Foundation.

Elizabeth Ripley, executive director of the health foundation, said the blood bank represents more than a good cause.

“This is such a central piece of health care infrastructure,” Ripley said.

Blood Bank Director of Marketing and Communications Ashere Chait said MEA donated $10,000 to furnish the office. Although the health foundation could not accept the local bank’s grant proposal in the most recent round of review, they did award $300,000 to the organization as a whole for the completion of a new collection and distribution center in Anchorage.

The state, also, “has been very generous throughout the project,” Chait said.

The new Anchorage center, she said, is one of the reasons the former Wasilla center and the Kenai Peninsula center closed down about six years ago. The intent was to re-evaluate and ideally reopen the facilities once the new building is complete.

Completion of construction for the coming Anchorage center is expected in October, but it will not be open for business until January.

As for the Wasilla collection center, board members hope it will someday function as a distribution center as well to better serve Valley residents.

The Wasilla Blood Bank of Alaska is located at 1301 S. Seward Meridian Pkwy., is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Wednesdays through Saturdays, and is equipped to see four donors at a time.

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.