Nik Rajkovic / news@whmi.com

Local blood donors no longer need to drive to Ann Arbor, Farmington or Livonia. The American Red Cross on Wednesday cut the ribbon on a new blood and platelet donation center in the Genoa Business Park near St. Joe's Hospital.

"The growth in the area. We also did an evaluation of the donors and where they're coming from to our existing donor centers. Brighton is a great area for that," said Ryan Connaughton, fixed site manager for Red Cross Michigan Region.

"We had a lot of donors coming from the area, the generous people from the area who drive a half-hour or 45 minutes to a donor center. This made a lot of sense to put one here,"

Connaughton said the center can handle up to 12 platelet and 25 whole blood donations each day.

Patricia Kelly is a frequent flyer, having donated platelets about every three weeks for the past couple years, totaling 171 donations.

"Three years ago and one week to the date, my son was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. Leukemia is a blood cancer. I didn't know what the importance was (for blood) until there was an extreme shortage and he couldn't receive platelets, two times.

"Both of those times we ended up in the ICU for a week at a time."

Brighton's new Red Cross donor center at 2250 Genoa Business Park Drive will be open four days a week:

Mondays and Tuesdays from 11am-7:30pm.
Thursdays from 8am-430pm.
Sundays from 630am-2:45pm.

Donors can schedule an appointment at the link below, or by calling 1-800-RED-CROSS, or through the Red Cross Blood Donor app.