By Marike Carli
At the end of the year, we gear up for the festive season, which typically is a period where we experience additional pressure to the blood supply. The malls are buzzing in full force, particularly over Black Friday. A lot of us are all in a mall shopping for the best savings and deals, looking for stocking fillers and holiday spoils.
On Saturday, 25 November 2023, we hosted our Red Saturday event. On this day, we invited the public to share in the ultimate special by donating blood, where you give one and save three. Our aim was to collect 1,000 units of blood and welcome 300 new donors.
1,095 people attended one of our ten blood donation clinics. We manage to collect 982 units of blood and welcomed 197 new donors. Below a breakdown of how each clinic performed:
Blue Route Mall: 102 units
Kenilworth Centre: 73 units
Bayside Mall: 93 units
N1 City Mall: 93 units
Tyger Valley Shopping Centre: 67 units
Capegate Shopping Centre: 80 units
Liberty Promenade: 129 units
Somerset Mall: 145 units
Whale Coast Mall: 104 units
Langeberg Mall: 96 units
Somerset Mall not only welcomed the most donors, they also had the most number of new blood donors, as 35% of the donors on the day donated blood for the very first time.
We wanted to know if you knew the meaning behind Red Saturday and if that motivated you to partake in the challenge. To do this, we sent out a survey on the Tuesday after the event.
11% of donors completed the survey and here’s what they had to say: 85% of you were spot on and said the campaign was to encourage the public to donate blood and to share in the ultimate special – by saving three lives with one donation. 65% knew what the goal behind Red Saturday was and 69% said the message inspired them to donate blood.
25% of you heard about Red Saturday on the radio, 18% on social media and 10% found out about it by visiting our website. 69% of the 25% that heard us on the radio, said they heard us on KFM 94.5, 17% on Smile 90.4FM and 7% on Heart 104.9 FM.
It’s great to see that our message remained clear – donating blood is truly the ultimate special.
