As World Blood Donor Day approaches on 14 June, the Moreton Bay region’s network of donor centres — including North Lakes, Strathpine, Redcliffe and Burpengary — is being recognised for the steady stream of locals who keep rolling up their sleeves, often without much fanfare.
One of those locals is Strathpine donor Reece Crawford, whose connection to the blood service became personal in an unexpected way. Reece had given a routine whole blood donation on Boxing Day in 2021, simply because he’d always believed that if you’re able to help, you should. Just over a fortnight later, his then eight-year-old daughter Charlotte suffered a sudden and life-threatening brain bleed. Reece noticed something was wrong the moment she began dragging her left foot, and acted immediately.
Charlotte was rushed into emergency surgery at Queensland Children’s Hospital, where complications during the operation meant she needed two units of donated blood to survive. For Reece, the timing was almost impossible to comprehend — the very donation pool he’d contributed to weeks earlier turned out to be the reason his own daughter pulled through.
Charlotte is now a healthy 13-year-old, and her father’s commitment to donating has only deepened since. Because Reece carries a rare antibody, he was identified as a candidate for Lifeblood’s Anti-D programme — a small, specialised group of donors numbering only around 130 nationally. Their plasma is used to produce Anti-D injections, which protect pregnant women with certain blood type incompatibilities from complications that can otherwise put their babies at serious risk.
The broader numbers underline just how much weight rests on donors like Reece. Australia needs more than 1.7 million donations this year to meet demand, which works out to roughly 33,000 donations a week, or one every 18 seconds. Despite that need, only around one in 30 Australians currently donates blood.
Locally, Moreton Bay residents have built a reputation as some of the more reliable contributors to that pool, thanks largely to the convenience of permanent donor centres scattered across the region. Donors can choose how they want to help: a standard whole blood donation takes about 15 minutes and can save up to three lives, while plasma donation takes closer to 45 minutes but can be given every fortnight and is used in roughly 18 different medical treatments, including cancer and immune therapies.
This year’s World Blood Donor Day also falls within National Blood Donor Week, which Lifeblood is running from 8 to 14 June nationally to thank Australia’s half a million regular blood and plasma donors. Lifeblood notes that more than 75,000 blood and plasma treatments are needed each year to help save the lives of Australian children alone. Australian Red Cross Lifeblood
For Reece, the message is simple: someone, somewhere, gave blood not knowing who it would end up helping — and for his family, that anonymous act made all the difference.
Locals wanting to get involved can:
- Book a donation through the Lifeblood app or website at one of the Moreton Bay centres in North Lakes, Strathpine, Redcliffe or Burpengary.
- Join a Lifeblood team by registering a workplace, sports club or friendship group to track their combined impact.
- Check the mobile donor van schedule online for outlying suburbs without a permanent centre.
More information on supporting local causes is available at How to Help (https://www.howtohelp.au/).
Published 14-June-2026
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