To the Editor:

On Saturday, July 28, the Voorheesville Volunteer Fire Department held a blood drive at our firehouse. I want to thank the people from Voorheesville and the surrounding area who came to donate and also the people who tried but could not because of the unusually long wait times.

On behalf of the department, I apologize for this circumstance. The Red Cross supervisor whom we deal with when arranging these events contacted me and apologized to us for this inconvenience as well and asked that I relay their apology to those who managed to donate and the ones who could not.

As explained to me, the problem was that they had multiple blood drives scheduled for that day and, because it was a fine summer day, several employees took advantage of the weather and called in at the last minute.

As a result, our assigned blood drive crew had only four workers doing all of the normal intake processes as well as the actual blood-taking efforts instead of the usual six workers. Despite these circumstances, we still managed to collect 33 pints of blood.

The VFD has hosted blood drives for more than 17 years. We will continue to run them and hope to see our loyal visitors and those who tried but failed at this last one as well as those who would like to come and make a donation for perhaps their first time.

Our next blood drive is already scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 5, 2019 so put it on your calendar and help save a life

Bill Stone

Blood Drive Coordinator

Voorheesville Fire Department