I have attempted to donate blood twice this week with the Red Cross. The first time was on 2/10/21 it was at St. Peter's Church in Monticello, NY. My GPS sent me to the wrong address, I called the Red Cross to let them know that I may be a few minutes late. They said I have a 15 minute window. I thought it would be okay.
I finally found the church, knocked on all the doors, and a priest finally answered and directed me to a building at the end of the block. Well. By the time I got there, they turned me away as they were leaving for the day.
I rescheduled for today at 6pm at the Downsville Central School in Downsville, NY--in the downstairs gym. When I got there, I saw the Red Cross truck & van. The doors were locked on the building. I banged as hard as I could on all the entrance doors. Nobody responded. I saw another side entrance, saw a maintenance guy, banged on that door. He either didn't see or hear me, or ignored me.
There were no signs anywhere directing anybody to go any particular place. Once I got inside, as the guy finally heard me, he informed me that the blood drive was in the auditorium. The Red Cross workers once again turned me away, as it was 6:05pm. The lady was very rude and said that nobody else had a problem getting in.
According to your FB page, blood is needed constantly. But the people that organize your drives are doing a terrible job at planning, communicating, and most of all, made me feel like I wasn't important enough to allow a 15 and a minute time discrepancy which was not my fault.
Sooo... I attempted to donate blood 2 times in the past 3 days. I feel very disrespected and discarded by the Red Cross.
I should at least be eligible to get 3 amazon gift cards or a gas card? This is quite a lot of driving and gas for me. Please let me know what the Red Cross will do to fix this situation. This organization needs to be dismantled & rebuilt from the ground up. Obviously those in charge give zero cares.