Canadian Blood Services kicks of summer-long campaign with help of Barrie first responders

Barrie's emergency service personnel are in a summer-long battle to see who can encourage the most new blood donors.

On Friday, the Barrie donation centre of Canadian Blood Services kicked off its Sirens for Life campaign. From July 1 – Sept. 4, Barrie Fire, Barrie Police and the County of Simcoe Paramedics will be battling to see which organization can bring in the highest number of new blood donors.

"It is important across Canada but locally, specifically, to continue to donate blood," said Chief Rich Johnston of the Barrie Police Service. "We know it's life-saving, and so we're trying to encourage people to think about it but to do it more."

The need locally is extremely high, with dozens of appointments needing to be filled this long weekend and over 2300 empty appointment slots throughout the summer.

"We must recover from the effects of the pandemic that affected blood donations," said Cheryl Russell, the community development manager at the Barrie donation centre. "When you have the app, it is just the easiest thing to be able to book your appointments and join a partner."

Johnston says he knows the need firsthand through his perspective as a police officer.

"We have our officers, our women and men out on the frontline, and they're going to calls, and sometimes those involve violence, and sometimes those involve car accidents, and there are injuries, we're just human, and humans get injured, and they require blood," said Johnston. "We know very well, all too well, how often it is needed and how fast it can go."

To book an appointment, you can click here.