Minority blood drive aims to help those battling Sickle Cell disease

INDIANAPOLIS — September is Sickle Cell Awareness Month.

Around 1,700 Hoosiers are living with the disease that mostly impacts Black people and other minorities. It’s why a local organization is calling on those communities for help.

Innovative Hematology will be holding a minority blood drive to help Hoosiers with the disease, like six-year-old Miracle Campbell.

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Like any other the first grader, she loves going outside and playing with her dolls, but sometimes her battle with the disorder effects that.

“My legs and my arms [hurt] because my arms feel like they just don’t want to [work]," she said.

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Sickle Cell is a life-long disease that more than 100,000 Americans have.

In the U.S., nine out of every 10 of them have African ancestry or identify as Black.

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The disorder impacts how the blood cells move through the body and can often be very painful.

“What my mom went through with me, and what I go through with her, it’s kind of the same,” Miracle's mother, Adrian Walker, said. “I don’t like it. I don’t like it for her. I wish I could take the pain away and have me be in pain for her, but I can’t.”

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Walker also has the disease and at 32-years-old, she's already had four strokes from complications.

Like many other patients, she and Miracle sometimes must rely on blood transfusions to get better.

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"What people don't know is that minorities, and that includes Asians, Latinos, Mediterranean, people of color, we have different antigens,” Carlene Heeter, the Cascade Program Coordinator for Innovate Hematology, said. “So, when we give the blood donations, if it's the same antigens of someone of color, it's less likely to feel like it's being invaded in the body."

In Indiana, only about half of one percent of donated blood comes from Black Americans.

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It's why Heeter helped organize the minority blood drive with the Innovative Hematology’s CASCADE program and Versiti Indiana Blood Center.

They’re calling on the communities of color in central Indiana to help.

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"Minorities need minority blood when they do blood transfusions, so I decided I wanted to do a few minority blood drives a year," Heeter said.

Heeter told WRTV donating blood takes less than 30 minutes but can have a lasting impact on so many.

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“Giving blood will help save at least three lives. So, giving blood is a great thing,” Miracle’s dad, Jorrell Campbell, who donates blood himself, said. “You might never meet these people but donating blood is helping make somebody's life a little bit easier."

Even if you can’t donate, they’re asking the community to come to learn more about the life-threatening disease.

Details for the blood drive are below:

• What: Minority Blood Drive
• When: Saturday, September 21; 10 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
• Where: Greater Northwest Baptist Church; 3402 W 62nd Street, Indianapolis, IN 46268
• Who: All minority blood donation candidates
• How: To register, call 1-800-7TO-GIVE or click here .