 You need a financial advisor with the freedom to focus on your specific needs. Whatever your goals, Reeve Potter can create a game plan tailored to you. Call Reeve at 432-0777 at Pikeville, Kentucky to learn more. When the pandemic hit the United States, blood centers had to close their blood drives and mobile collection centers leading to a nationwide blood shortage. Blood centers are still struggling to restore the nation's banked blood to pre-pandemic levels. We have really been in a tremendous shortage. The need for blood, whether it's for cancer treatments, car accidents, premature births, diseases, whatever it may be, is really at an all-time high at the same time that because of the pandemic for health and safety reasons, because of our lack of ability to get into businesses and schools for a good portion of time, we haven't been able to keep up with those that need for blood. Pre-pandemic, Kentucky blood centers operated with a minimum three-day supply to serve their local hospitals, but for most of the last two years, they have been operating with a day or less supply of blood. A lot of people think of blood donation. They think, well, that's going to go towards something like a car accident or some sort of trauma, which is true, but it goes towards a lot of other things. I mentioned the cancer treatments. About 25% of the nation's blood supply goes towards helping people treat cancer. It goes towards premature births. It goes towards diseases. It goes towards a lot of different everyday things where people really rely on it to live their everyday lives. One in four people in their lifetime will need a blood transfusion, and in America, someone needs blood every two seconds. We can't manufacture blood. It's something that we need people to come in and do, and what I would hope folks to get from this is that everybody wants to help and do things in different ways, and we all have different means of doing that, but this is something that really only requires a little bit of your time. When you come in to make a blood donation, it only takes about 35, 45 minutes, and that one simple act can help save up to three lives with how we split the blood up. Donors are eligible to donate every 56 days. If you're interested in donating, go to KYBloodCenter.org to find a drive or to make an appointment at a donor center. For Mountain Top News, I'm Brianna Robinson.