Everyone must donate blood once in three months, says Blood 2 Live Foundation founder
KADAPA: A voluntary donor Pattupogula Pavan Kumar of Kadapa feels all people must donate blood once every three months if the needy are to get blood without running around blood banks.
A young man of 30 years, the founding president of Blood 2 Live Foundation has been working towards achieving this goal for past eight years. He has organised almost 900 blood donation camps across the undivided Andhra Pradesh. The blood collected thus has helped 13 lakh patients. Even during the difficult Covid-19 lockdown time, he and the youth he encouraged donated more than 900 units of blood.
Pavan Kumar completed his B. Tech degree and started earning a five-figure salary. What prompted him into starting his Blood 2 Live Foundation was his mother’s need to undergo spinal surgery, which was getting delayed due to insufficient blood. That was when he donated a unit of blood. He married the girl he loved shortly after finishing his engineering. But she had to be admitted to a Vijayawada hospital for 20 days due to a heart-related problem. During this time too, he noticed patients struggling for blood.
It was then that Pavan Kumar decided to save lives with blood donation by starting Blood 2 Live Foundation in 2012, though he had been donating blood since 2007. His organisation, supported by friends and donors, has been donating blood in the two Telugu states. Apart from donating blood, he has been distributing pamphlets, running campaigns through radio, cartoons, poems, songs and videos. He has got many awards from various organisations. Recently, the All India Marvadi Association felicitated him at Hyderabad for his services.
He prints tens of thousands of calendars a year with addresses of major blood banks in the two states, their phone numbers, the names of blood donors, and their phone numbers too. So far, Pavan Kumar’s endeavour has facilitated 13 lakh people into receiving blood. He himself has donated blood 21 times.
Founding president of Blood 2 Live Foundation, Pavan Kumar, told Deccan Chronicle that instead of the patient or patient's relatives going to blood banks for blood, they should be able to get blood without asking. For that to happen, he felt everyone should voluntarily donate blood at their nearest blood bank once every three months. “This would be possible only thorough understanding among people about blood donation. That is why, I am fighting tirelessly,” he remarked.
