While it is not everyone's lifelong dream to have a needle shoved into their arm and a pint of their blood drained out, donating blood is a very important action that most anyone can take to better his or her community.

Each unit of blood that a donor gives can help save three lives, as the blood is divided into red blood cells, platelets and plasma; each part has a specialized job that it performs, and all three parts can be given to different patients.

Donating blood is a lifesaving outreach that can easily be performed by many members of the community, but unfortunately, barely anyone actually does it. According to the Mayo Clinic, only five percent of those who are eligible to donate actually do, which is an astounding low figure.

People complain about apathy for the Presidential election voting, but those numbers are usually around 40-50% of eligible voters. Now, admittedly, giving blood is a bit more painful than punching a ballot, but it is still a disturbing sign of how the majority of society either does not understand the importance of donating blood or they cannot be bothered to get off their couches and do it. There over 300 million citizens in the country, and 4.5 million of those Americans would die each year without blood transfusions; up to 32,000 pints of blood are used every single day in the United States alone, which makes it important for donors to donate not just once or twice, but as often as they can.

The blood supply is something that must be replenished and refilled constantly, or it runs of risk of not being able to provide for those who need transfusions (especially in emergency situations). Even though donors can give blood every two months, if all eligible blood donors gave just two times per year, it would almost completely alleviate blood supply shortages.

One of the problems, however, is that red blood cell donations must be used within 42 days of its donation time, or it becomes unusable. This is one of the reasons that consistent contributions of blood are necessary for the survival of the blood supply, and, to be honest, the survival of millions of people who depend on the blood bank to provide life-saving donations.

Often, people will cite the fact that they don't know what is required to donate blood or that they are not eligible to donate, but the requirements are actually not as difficult as society makes them seem.

Anyone in good health (more on that in a minute), 17 years old or older

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