BOSTON — Boston Children's Hospital is in ‘urgent need’ of blood. They say recent winter storms have impacted supply levels.
When Boston Children's Hospital has an urgent need for blood, the phone rings at the home of Olivia and Giovanna Sabini-Leite to come in and donate.
At the age of 17, the Franklin twins are already in rare company. They are among a small group of donors who have given over a gallon of blood.
"When we turned 16, the age to donate with parental consent, right on our birthday we went," Giovanna said.
The reason is personal.
At the age of 11, Giovanna learned she needed spinal fusion surgery. She said as she headed to Boston Children's Hospital the morning of the operation, she was scared.
“Just thinking, I can't do this, I need to turn back. But I couldn't, because it was the morning of the surgery,” said Giovanna.
But as she recovered, she realized there were lots of kids in her situation.
“We needed help and we needed blood and we depended on other people in the situation to help us," Giovanna explained.
Since last year, the girls have returned to Boston Children's every eight weeks to give blood. Their dedication has been met with surprise.
“When we went to the blood center, it was like; 'oh another two months, you guys are here,'” Olivia said. “I guess it was surprising to them because there aren't a lot of younger people who do this.”
Now, they're working to change that.
“We're trying to go out and recruit teenagers like us to become lifelong donors, because there is no substitute for blood,” Olivia said.
The girls say kids their age don't donate because the belief is that it takes a long time and is painful. But they say donations take just 10 minutes and are no more painful than a bee sting.
“For us, that bee sting and then saving a child's life...that's very little compared to what, in the grand scale of things, it can do,” Giovanna said.
The girls will next hold a blood drive to benefit Boston Children's Hospital's donation center on March 4, at the YMCA in Franklin.
Halfpints.childrenshospital.org sponsor code for this drive is YMCAFR.
You can call the blood donation center at 617-355-6677.