Rotary in Cowboy Country out for blood

Posted by Haagen P. Cumlet
The Governors' Challenge Blood Drive - one of the largest blood drive networks within Rotary International – has expanded from five to 11 Rotary districts in the USA, covering all of Texas and New Mexico,  and stretching into the neighboring states of Oklahoma and Arkansas. In total, the Governors' Challenge Blood Drive now includes 613 Rotary clubs with more than 27,700 members. By May 6, 2010, district 5790 and 5810 hit the historic milestone of 100,000 units of blood. Update, June 2010: At the GNBD symposium on voluntary blood donation at the Rotary International convention in Montreal founder of the project, PDG Chuck Kurtzman, presented the Texas network and told about how a club project managed to expand and became a challenge among several districts. To see the presentation, click here or go to DOWNLOADS).

 

By March 31, 2010, the two Rotary districts 5790 and 5810 had been registered for respectively 64,227 units of blood and 34,852 units of blood.

At the rate of approximately 29 units per day, the historic milestone of 100,000 units was reached May 6, 2010, according to a Fact Sheet, released in Texas.

One unit of blood, after being separated into three components, can potentially help three people.

The expansion of the Challenge was confirmed at the time of this year's President Elect Training Seminar in March, known as the Lone Star PETS, a joint Rotary District event in Texas, which brings together about 550 incoming club presidents.

 

Nine of the Rotary Districts already cooperate through their membership of Lone Star P.E.T.S. Inc., and a tenth district, from neighboring Oklahoma, sends its president-elects to the same training seminar.

 

The blood donation network began in Texas in 1996 as a club initiative by Fort Worth South Rotary Club in District 5790 under the leadership of Rotarian Chuck Kurtzman, who is recognised as the founder of the Governors' Challenge Blood Drive.

 

  • To begin with, Forth Worth South RC challenged other clubs in the area to see how many blood donors each club could line up at specific blood drives. Realizing that the Rotarians in the district had developed a "taste" for blood, as more and more clubs took up the challenge from Fort Worth South RC, the 1998-99 District Governor, Sid Pruitt, collectively named it the Governor's Challenge Blood Drive.

The Governor's Challenge spread in 2001 overseas to District 9300  in South Africa, and in 2003 to the adjacent Texas District 5810 (Dallas and surrounding communities)

 

  • Symbolizing the expansion at the time, the apostrophe in the word Governor's was moved to the other side of the s as Governors' Challenge Blood Drive.

In 2009 three more Rotary Districts in the US joined the network

  • District 5890 (South Central Texas)
  • District 5770 (Southwest Oklahoma)
  • District 5830 (East Texas, parts of Arkansas, Oklahoma)

In 2010, six more districts in the US joined the network

  • District 5730 (Northern Texas, known as the Panhandle)
  • District 5520 (Western Texas, New Mexico)
  • District 5840 (Southwest Texas)
  • District 5930 (South Texas)
  • District 5870 (Central Texas)
  • District 5910 (South East Texas).

Editor's footnotes:

 

  1. Nine Rotary Districts make up the formal membership of Lone Star P.E.T.S. Inc.: 5730, 5790, 5810, 5830, 5840, 5870, 5890, 5910 and 5930. Almost all of these districts lie totally within Texas - with the exception of District 5830 that has two clubs in Oklahoma and two clubs in the Arkansas part of the city of Texarkana.
  2. District 5520 (West Texas and New Mexico) is not a member of Lone Star PETS, mainly because of the distance. D-5520 encompasses 61 clubs, out of which 50 are in New Mexico.
  3. District 5770 in Southwest Oklahoma attends Lone Star PETS in neighboring Texas, but is not an "official" member of the nine districts' President Elect Training Seminar.
  4. The first meeting of Lone Star PETS was held March of 1987 in San Antonio, Texas, with nine charter districts that are still voluntarily participating. The group was formally incorporated as a non-profit corporation with the State of Texas in 1989 under the name of Lone Star P.E. T. S. Inc. 
  5. Texas has an area of 268,820 square miles (696,200 km2), and a growing population of 24.8 million people. Texas is bordered by Mexico to the south, New Mexico to the west, Oklahoma to the north, Arkansas to the northeast, and Louisiana to the east.
  6. Chuck Kurtzman served as president of Fort Worth South Rotary Club 1999-2000 and as District Governor 2003-04 for District 5790. He is the Founder of the Governor's Challenge Blood Drive and Co-founder and current Vice-president of Global Network for Blood Donation, a Rotarian Action Group. He is the 2008-10 Assistant General Coordinator for RI's Health and Hunger Resource Group and serves as chair for District 5790 Institute for Leadership. 
  7. Click here for the complete GCBD list of clubs and members or go to DOWNLOADS.  
  8. Related articles at this website: 
    "You see this thing called blood", 
    "Three more US Districts join Governors' Challenge", 
    "Every year, the bar gets raised in District 5790"
  9. Comments regarding this article can be mailed to editor@ourblooddrive.org

Contact:  c.kurtzman@ourblooddrive.org ,  1 817.870.9884 office and mobile.