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Welcome to LifeSouth Country!

LifeSouth Community Blood Centers is a community blood supplier for local hospitals in Florida, Georgia and Alabama. LifeSouth is committed to meeting the blood supply needs of these hospitals in each of the communities we serve by providing the highest quality blood components and services.

Each year, nearly five million Americans need a blood transfusion. To meet our responsibility, we need to collect 266,000 blood donations a year. That’s 728 donors a day. With over 30 donor centers, 37 blood mobiles and over 1,000 blood drives a month, our LifeSouth team is committed to making sure the blood is there when you or your family member is in need. We are your community blood center. The blood supply collected from our donors directly serves the needs of patients at over 120 medical facilities throughout our footprint. The blood donated here will stay in our community for local patient transfusion.  Only if our local supply is met will LifeSouth share our blood resources with other communities.

There are no substitutes for blood. Patients who need blood transfusions to survive depend on volunteer donors who give the gift of life. As a community blood center serving the community’s needs, we ask everyone to join us in a commitment to grow this community’s blood supply. We promise to partner with businesses and provide dynamic, fun and innovative blood donor recruitment programs. We promise to use every resource we have to uphold our commitment to meet the community’s needs for blood. 

Volunteering to give blood is giving the gift of life. We hold this gift with the highest regard. Please consider becoming a part of our community’s blood supply by donating blood with LifeSouth.

 
Donor and Patient Story PDF Print E-mail
Riding to make a difference

smith and ching

 Rider Gary Smith of Schellsburg, Pa., met Frances Ching of Sydney, Australia. In 2000 Smith donated marrow for a transplant that saved Ching’s life. Until Friday, the two had never met face-to-face or spoken.

 

 

Atlanta When Gary Smith of Schellsburg, Pa. met Frances Ching of Sydney, Australia Thursday there were no words. The two simply looked at each other, smiled and embraced as a room filled with people looked on.

         
Smith is one of the 12 members of the Five Points of Life Ride cycling team that’s traveling 2,000 miles through six Southeastern states.  On April 7, 2000 it was a donation of marrow from Smith, that saved the life of Ching 7,000 miles away. She’d been on a waiting list for six years, hoping that a match would be found. Thursday was the first time they’d ever met face-to-face or spoken to each other.

         
Transplants are done anonymously. All Smith knew was that a 33-year leukemia patient needed his marrow.


“I saw it go into the cooler and they said that it was going to the airport,” Smith told the group gathered for a press conference at LifeSouth’s Atlanta donor center.

Ching, now 42 , is a registered nurse who works with post-surgery patients. Back in 2000 all that she knew was that her donor was from the U.S. One year after the transplant, they both agreed to reveal their identities. They corresponded by mail and later e-mail. Ching had seen photos of Smith. He’d seen photos of her cats, Bobby McGee and Oscar. When Ching was introduced, it was their first face-to-face encounter and a total surprise for Smith’s teammates, who’d been moved by his story on the ride.


Smith, 56, a state parks manager in Pennsylvania, is one of 7 million Americans who has volunteered with the National Marrow Donor Program Registry that connects patients to a network of 11 million donors around the globe.


A shared ethnic background increases the chances that the tissue of a donor and recipient will match, but Smith and Ching beat the odds.


“We’re more alike on the inside than we are on the outside,” said Smith said, who frequently jokes that he changed Ching from a positive person to a negative, since the transplant changed her blood type from A-positive to A-negative.


Ching said she was nervous about the meeting and traveling solo half way around the globe. But within a few minutes, she was looking relaxed as she and Smith chatted. Smith only learned of the meeting five days ago, but kept it secret from his teammates. He was proudly wearing the “Softy” leather bush hat that Ching had presented him. She will be joining the team as it rides on to Gainesville, Ga. and Clemson, S.C. in her first-ever visit to America.


“I knew it would happen one day,” Ching said.

 

 

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