The Save A Life Tour 2003

The U.S. blood supply suffers from chronic shortages and is often less than two days away from "empty." To help support the nation's current and future blood supply, from May to November 2003, the American Red Cross embarked on the Save A Life Tour 2003 — its largest nationwide blood donor initiative ever.

The Save A Life Tour 2003 aimed to raise public awareness about the need for regular blood donations, encourage new and re-energize current donors to give blood, and help generate 3 million blood donations during the campaign.

The Save A Life Tour consisted of two convoys that traveled over 33,000 miles and visited over 300 communities from coast to coast over six months. The centerpiece of each convoy was a 50-foot tractor trailer housing a mobile museum with interactive exhibits about the importance of blood and regular blood donation. More than 38,000 people across the country visited the exhibits and many recorded moving testimonials about how blood donation has impacted their own lives.

The Save A Life Tour received broad coverage, generating over 600 million media impressions and reaching millions of people across the country with its life-saving message. The Tour also challenged communities to raise their level of blood donation to help reach the 3 million donations goal. At the end of the Tour, 300 counties had grown their level of donation by more than 20%, and the Red Cross had received 3.1 million units of blood — enough blood to help save as many as 9 million lives.

"The Save A Life Tour 2003 made a lasting impact on our donors and community members," said Chris Hrouda, CEO of the American Red Cross Southern Blood Services Region. "We really saw members of our community come together... It was great to see so many people who had never donated blood take part in the events and hopefully be inspired to start donating on a regular basis."

The "events" themselves captured the diversity and the great community spirit in small towns and large cities across America. Visit our Tour photo gallery to see some exciting moments from events as diverse as the Rodeo Round-up in Prineville, OR, the opening of the NASDAQ market in New York City, the 75,000+ people celebration of July 4th in Fort Vancouver, WA, the Agricultural Fair in Portland, CT, the Chef Challenge in Dallas, TX, the step shows hosted by Emmanuel Lewis (aka Webster) and T-Boz from TLC in Atlanta, GA, Elvis Week in Graceland, TN, and many more.

The 2003 Tour came to a close on November 20, 2003, but "its work is far from over," stated Red Cross President and CEO, Marsha J. Evans. "Every two seconds, someone in America needs blood... and just one pint can save as many as three lives."

You can schedule your blood donation now, or learn more about becoming a blood donor.