The machine has been out there for about four or five years in different places in the country. We've just been waiting for the right time to bring it here. We're falling in the middle of the timeline of counties that have it.

Without you, it would make our job that much harder or even impossible.

That's a lot of people's lives you've touched or perhaps even saved.

Only certain donors qualify for this method. It's based mostly on height, weight and hemoglobin levels.

It's an automated process using a smaller needle. It takes the blood out of the body and puts it in a machine where the red cells are separated and saved in a bag. Then the plasma and platelets are put back into the body with a little bit of saline.

It allows people to give twice as many red blood cells in one donation. The procedure is a real advancement in the blood collection process.