WASHINGTON – Right now, the amount of blood coming in and going out of local Red Cross donation centers is an exact match. And that’s not nearly good enough.

Summer is a rough time for blood donations, says the American Red Cross’s Steve Mavika, because people are on vacation and there aren’t any school-based blood drives going on.

But over the summer, Mavika says, people “don’t have the luxury of taking a vacation from the need for blood.”

It’s important to have a surplus of blood, Mavika says, because it’s not as though you can hook up a line directly between blood donors and accident victims. Blood that’s on the shelf today will go to the people who need it tomorrow.

“There’s always an urgent need for blood,” he says.

You can find a list dozens of area blood drives over the next few weeks here.

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