It can be hard to fully understand just what your blood donation may mean to someone else.

Yesterday Canadian Blood Services hosted a ‘Partners for Life’ event in Red Deer, where they invited some of their current corporate sponsors and potential new sponsors in hopes of building new interest in the program and ultimately reaching out to more blood donors.

8 year old Parker Berry and her mom Carrie Ann from Lacombe shared their story.

“A year and a half ago my daughter was diagnosed with ITP, which is a blood clotting disorder.  She received multiple blood transfusions over the last year and a half to save her life.  We’re hoping that being here today, her story will convince some people to go and donate and we can save someone else’s life”.

Carrie Ann says in the moment it was hard to understand the impact of those blood transfusions, but they are so very fortunate that what her daughter needed was available.

“It happened so fast, and you don’t even realize it at the time, but if we wouldn’t have had blood at the hospital when she arrived there, she wouldn’t have survived a couple of more hours.  She’s received blood transfusions, platelet transfusions as well as IVIG which is a whole bunch of blood components mixed together to boost the immune system”.

Shaun Richer is the Territory Manager for Canadian Blood Services; he says their event yesterday was a first time event as they look to grow the ‘Partners for Life’ program.

“Work with different corporations big or small in different ways.  It can be as simple as just sharing our message, to adopting clinics, to coming up with an annual pledge that they will come up with to support us throughout the year and send all of their staff into the clinic to donate blood”.

As for Parker, she has since returned to doing all the activities she loves including dancing and skating and just being a kid, riding her bike and climbing on the monkey bars at Terrace Ridge School.

Partners for Life

(Parker Berry & Canadian Blood Services Territory Manager Shaun Richer)