Nambour members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints invited their friends to join them in the worth-while endeavour of a blood drive. Forty people turned up at the Red Cross Mobile unit on Saturday, 28 January.
The large semi-trailer parked on the basketball court of the Nambour meetinghouse, and donors lined up from 9:00 AM until 4:00 PM.
A Red Cross representative said it was a "huge effort," and reported that each donation could help save up to three lives.
Latter-day Saints from other Sunshine Coast areas expressed a desire to help the Red Cross in like manner, so a second donation day is being scheduled for the Church's Kawana meetinghouse. Organizers are hoping for an even larger turnout.
Saints in other parts of Australia have helped their communities by sponsoring and promoting similar local blood drives. According to the Red Cross, only three percent of Australians donate blood each year, yet more than thirty percent of the nation's population will require blood at sometime in their life.
Because Latter-day Saints adhere to a "Word of Wisdom" that teaches abstinence from alcohol and addictive substances, they are good candidates for giving blood. The use of alcohol and drugs not prescribed by a physician can disqualify people from donating.
Actually, blood mobiles are a common site at Mormon meetinghouses worldwide, as congregations support their local blood banks. They know it is "a small and simple thing by which great things are brought to pass." (Book of Mormon , Alma 37:6)