Summer is the season for spending time outdoors, enjoying our families, and taking much needed vacations. Unfortunately, the need for blood donations never takes a vacation. When we learned that summer is a typically slow time for blood donations we decided to do something to give people an incentive to visit their local Red Cross and donate.
We asked Edible Arrangements franchisees in the 35 states where there are American Red Cross blood drives if they wanted to participate in an incentive program. These independent owners and operators of EA stores overwhelmingly voted to help. The idea came from our stores in the Boston area who, working with their local Red Cross have been running a similar incentive program for several years. So during the entire month of August, anyone who donates blood at a Red Cross blood drive in one of the 35 participating states will receive a voucher for a free box of six pieces of chocolate dipped fruit. Blood donors can take the coupon right to their nearest store as soon as they donate, or save it for another day – it’s good until September 15.
This incentive program is a great opportunity for us and our local franchises to give back to our communities, and it dovetails with our “Random Acts of Happiness” program that began in late April and runs until August 31. For this program we created a “Random Acts of Happiness” website (actsofhappiness.com) and invited people to submit the little acts that bring people joy in their lives – whether it’s something they have done, or something nice that someone else did for them.
Visitors to the site can vote for their favorite random acts. At the end of August, the person whose random act of happiness got the most votes will win $10,000 and the organization with the most votes will win $20,000. But that’s not all. For every vote cast, up to 20,000 we are donating $1 to Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America, for all the happiness they bring to kids across the country.
Our blood drive events in 35 states are designed to give a little happiness to the blood donors who, through their donations, are performing random acts of happiness all during the month of August. It’s our way of saying thank you to all of them for their generosity.
States Participating in the American Red Cross Blood Drive Incentive Program: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia.
(Red Cross schedules blood drives to meet critical need)
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