LifeSouth Community Blood Centers

LifeSouth Community Blood Centers is a not-for-profit blood bank incorporated in Florida.^[2] LifeSouth is headquartered in Gainesville, Florida and serves over 100 hospitals in Florida, Georgia and Alabama. It has formerly been known as Civitan Regional Blood Centers.

History

In 1974, hospitals were in critical need of volunteer blood donors after the FDA curtailed the practice of paying donors for blood donations. Gainesville, Fla. hospitals (Alachua General Hospital, UF Health Shands Hospital and North Florida Regional Medical Center) all agreed that a non-profit community blood center was the answer and made an appeal to all local civic organizations. The Gainesville Civitan Club was the only organization that agreed to take on this task. Members backed a loan with their own money to start what they called Civitan Regional Blood Center – today known as LifeSouth Community Blood Centers.

For the past 40 years, LifeSouth has grown at the request of hospitals in need of a community blood supplier. LifeSouth now has 30 donor centers, 40 bloodmobiles, hosts 2,000 blood drives a month and is a proud partner of more than 100 hospitals in Florida, Alabama and Georgia.

Today, LifeSouth has close to 800 employees and operates as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization overseeing an annual budget of nearly $80 million. With 4.4 million blood donations and counting, LifeSouth is privileged to celebrate community partners, donors and patients.^[3]

Foundations and affiliates

Five Points of Life

Five Points of Life Foundation is a support affiliate of LifeSouth Community Blood Centers, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charitable organization. The Five Points of Life Foundation educates and raises awareness of the five ways to share life with others through the donation of blood, apheresis, marrow, cord blood, organ and tissue. The Foundation works with blood centers, organ procurement organizations, marrow registries and community organizations to educate citizens about donation.^[4]

LifeCord

LifeCord is a community-based public cord blood bank that collects and stores umbilical cord blood for the purpose of clinical cures and basic research in the field of stem cell transplantation. LifeCord participates in the network of public cord blood banks affiliated with the National Marrow Donor Program’s Be The Match Registry and the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research. LifeCord is a program of LifeSouth Community Blood Centers which performs community and donor education, cord blood collection and processing, distribution of the cord blood units, and evaluation of transplant outcomes.^[5]

References