For more specific eligibility information, nursing supervisors may be contacted at 937-461-3450 
(1-800-388-4483) or via email at: canidonate@givingblood.org.

Who Can Donate

First, make your appointment online.

NOTE: We’re taking extra precautions to ensure the health of our donors and staff by requiring masks, and following COVID-19 health and safety guidelines at our donation facilities.

When you arrive for your appointment, you’ll sign in and Community Blood Center staff will ask you a few health questions. Then you’ll have a few basic physical screening checks done including:
• Blood Pressure
• Pulse
• Temperature
This is all to ensure you’re healthy enough to donate and just takes a few minutes.
When your screening shows you meet donation requirements you’ll head to the donor room to meet the phlebotomist who will draw your blood.

Then, for the next ten minutes or so, you just get to relax and know you’re making a big difference for someone in our community.
(And yes. You do get a snack after.)

Need more info? Check out additional donation details here.

Donor Safety
Community Blood Center is taking extra precautions to ensure the safety of donors and staff by implementing social distancing measures and increased infection control protocols. Prior to donation, all blood donors will have their temperature, blood pressure, pulse, and hemoglobin levels checked to ensure their well-being and eligibility to donate. COVID-19 is not known to be transmitted by transfusion of blood and blood components.

Visit givingblood.org to learn more.

About Community Blood Center
Founded in September 1964, Community Blood Center (CBC) is a quality, ethical provider of blood components, laboratory services, transfusion medicine and therapeutic blood services to assure a safe and adequate blood supply. CBC strives to achieve the highest standards in serving donors, medical communities, and patients. 

CBC is a 501(c) 3, not-for-profit, tax-exempt corporation.

YOU'RE IN DEMAND!  Blood donation is always needed — not just when there’s a major emergency. Patients in our community in need of lifesaving transfusions and blood therapies are counting on you to help keep our local blood banks well stocked with all types of blood.

937-461-3220

About Community Blood Center
Founded in September 1964, Community Blood Center (CBC) is a quality, ethical provider of blood components, laboratory services, transfusion medicine and therapeutic blood services to assure a safe and adequate blood supply. CBC strives to achieve the highest standards in serving donors, medical communities, and patients. 

CBC is a 501(c) 3, not-for-profit, tax-exempt corporation.

Donor Safety
Community Blood Center is taking extra precautions to ensure the safety of donors and staff by implementing social distancing measures and increased infection control protocols. Prior to donation, all blood donors will have their temperature, blood pressure, pulse, and hemoglobin levels checked to ensure their well-being and eligibility to donate. COVID-19 is not known to be transmitted by transfusion of blood and blood components.

A healthy blood supply is vital to our community. Visit givingblood.org to learn more.

Why you may NOT be allowed to give blood:

Your Health

• Diagnosis of Hepatitis B or Hepatitis C.
• IV drug use in the last 3 months.
• Anyone with symptoms or laboratory evidence of AIDS or who are considered to have an increased risk for contracting AIDS.
• Malaria (symptoms in last 3 years).

YOU'RE

OUR TYPE

YOU'RE IN DEMAND!  Blood donation is always needed — not just when there’s a major emergency. Patients in our community in need of lifesaving transfusions and blood therapies are counting on you to help keep our local blood banks well stocked with all types of blood.

Now, when you give blood through Community Blood Center, it’s automatically tested for COVID-19 antibodies.

Are you interested in giving blood? 

To ensure the safety of blood donation for both donors and recipients, all volunteer blood donors must be evaluated to determine their eligibility to give blood.

For more specific eligibility information, nursing supervisors may be contacted at 937-461-3450 (1-800-388-4483) or via email at: canidonate@givingblood.org.

Are you interested in giving blood?

TO GIVE BLOOD YOU MUST:

BEFORE DONATING YOU SHOULD:

For more specific eligibility information, nursing supervisors may be contacted at 937-461-3450 (1-800-388-4483) or via email at: canidonate@givingblood.org.

Are you interested in giving blood?

How long before you can donate again:

DONATION TYPE

Whole blood donation

Platelet donation

Plasma donation

Double Red Blood Cells donation

FREQUENCY

56 days (8 weeks)

7 days (up to 24 times a year)

28 days (4 weeks)

112 days (16 weeks)

Blood Donation

Why you may NOT be allowed to give blood RIGHT NOW:

Your Body Art

• Tattoos are acceptable if they are healed and if they were applied at a tattoo studio licensed in 39 states. Tattoos performed in Massachusetts,
• Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware or outside the US require a three-month deferral.
• "Permanent makeup" or cosmetic tattooing is acceptable if performed by a licensed physician in any state.
• Piercings are acceptable if they are healed and were performed with a single-use needle.
  

Ask a CBC professional about:

• History of Yellow Jaundice not associated with Hepatitis. 
• History of heart disease, heart attack, stroke or open heart surgery.
• Kidney disease.
• Diagnosis, treatment or positive test for a sexually transmitted disease.
  Hepatitis exposure. 
• History of cancer.
• Travel outside the U.S. or Canada in the last three months. 

Other health or travel questions you may have

What Happens to Blood 
After Donation

Step One

After your unit of blood is collected - along with several small vials used for testing - your blood donation is labeled and transported to our component laboratory.

Step Two

Whole blood donations are separated into two essential components, red cells and plasma.

Step Three 

Your blood is typed, which includes identifying the ABO type and a positive or negative Rh factor. A combination of pre-donation screening and rigorous testing ensures the safety of blood supplied by Community Blood Center. Each vial of blood is tested for: 

• HBV (Hepatitis B Virus)
• HCV (Hepatitis C Virus)
• HIV-1, HIV-2  (the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS)
  HTLV (Human T-cell Lymphotropic Virus)
• Syphilis
• Unexpected red cell antibodies that the donor may have formed in response to an earlier exposure to blood, through either transfusion or pregnancy
• West Nile Virus (WNV)
• Sickle cell trait (performed on donors enrolling in the sickle cell program)
• Chagas Disease
• ZIKA Virus 

No blood is released for transfusion without passing the required tests. Although it is rare to find donated blood that may transmit infection, those units of blood that are reactive for viral markers are not released for transfusion and the person who made the donation is notified. 

Step Four 

After your blood has been divided, passed all tests, and been properly typed and labeled, it is stored in large refrigerators and freezers at CBC. It is now ready for distribution to hospitals.

The blood components are carefully packed in special temperature-controlled containers and then transported by contract and volunteer couriers to our partner hospitals.

Step Five 

The final step in your donated blood's journey is when the right type of donation you have made reaches the right patient-typically within 10 days.

Community Blood Center is the primary provider of life-saving blood and blood components to our 25 hospital partners in Ohio and Indiana. CBC also provides additional units of blood to hospitals across the country facing an urgent need. CBC responds to calls for blood from U.S. military or government agencies coordinating relief efforts around the world.

Your Travel 

• Anyone who has spent more than three months in the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Channel Islands or Isle of Man, Gibraltar, or the Falkland Islands) from 1980 through 1996.
• From 1980 through 2001, anyone who has spent five or more years in France or Ireland.
  

Your Health

• Cold or flu symptoms, including a cough, sore throat and/or fever.
• 24 hour deferral period after certain dental work, including root canal, oral surgery, extraction of wisdom teeth. (You must be asymptomatic in all instances and all packing must be removed).
• Pregnancy, miscarriage or abortion. There is a six week deferral period  after delivery or termination of pregnancy.
• Blood Transfusion - defer three months.
• Dental - Packing and sutures must be removed.
• Mononucleosis - Must be fully recovered and no incidence of jaundice.

Your Travel 

• Travel to certain countries may prevent you from donating blood, temporarily.
• The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has strict policies in place to prevent the theoretical risk of spreading mad cow disease in the blood supply. Check with CBC if you have traveled to the United Kingdom and Europe.
• Travel to Central America, South America, Africa and China can mean a three-month deferral due to high concentrations of certain diseases, including malaria.
• Check with your blood center if you have questions about these common travel-related deferrals.

Your Medications

• Click to see medications that cause deferral
• Most medications taken within 24 hours are acceptable. 
• Antibiotics are not acceptable within 24 hours of a donation. (Unless being taken for prevention, e.g. acne or rosacea).
• Consult with a nursing supervisor or mobile blood drive team leader about the deferral period if you have received immunizations or injections.
• If symptom free, there is no deferral period for the flu vaccine, COVID-19 vaccine, or pneumonia vaccine.
• The flu vaccine contains dead viruses and is not cause for deferral.
• Contact CBC for vaccinations other than flu, COVID-19, or pneumonia.
• Live vaccines may prevent you from donating blood. You may be deferred for up to one month if you have recently received measles, mumps or rubella vaccinations.
• Shingles, (except for Shingrix), Hepatitis B vaccine is a one-month deferal.
• There are multiple vaccines that are two-week deferrals.
• Donors with well-established (not recently diagnosed) diabetes controlled by diet, oral medications and/or insulin therapy are eligible to donate.
• Donors with controlled high blood pressure by diet, oral medications are eligible to donate.