Community Blood Center to host pre-Fourth of July drive

Patriotism isn't in short supply around the Fourth of July, but something else usually is — blood.

The Community Blood Center wants to alleviate that with the United for Life Pre-Independence Day Blood Drive from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday. Anyone 17 and older may donate at any of the following locations in Collier and Lee counties:

• Community Blood Center, 311 Ninth St. N., Naples, on the first floor of the NCH Medical Plaza Building, Suite 108. Parking is available on the first floor of the parking garage.

• Community Blood Center's Bloodmobile parked at Waterside Shops, 5415 U.S. 41 N., North Naples.

• Lee Memorial Blood Centers at Lee Memorial Hospital in Fort Myers; at Cape Coral Hospital; at Health Park Medical Center, 9981 Health Park Circle; and at the Bloodmobile parked outside Old Navy, Page Field Commons, 4977 S. Cleveland Ave.

Successful donors will receive a $10 gasoline card, while supplies last, and the chance to win a $50 Best Buy gift card and prizes from Silver Spoon Café, California Pizza Kitchen and Brio Tuscan Grill.

Lee Memorial Blood Center's prizes may vary.

Sixty of 100 Americans are eligible to give blood but only three of every 100 actually do. Donors may give blood every 56 days. Blood donation requires that a person weigh at least 110 pounds.

For more information, call the Community Blood Center at (239) 436-5455 or log onto www.nchmd.org/bloodcenter .