OneBlood bus scheduled for company parking lot from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; employees will serve burgers and hotdogs
Slug-A-Bug is in the business of dealing death to termites, roaches and a wide range of other pests. But on Jan. 29, the company will instead focus on preserving life – human life.
A platelet bus from OneBlood will be in the Slug-A-Bug parking lot that Saturday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 2091 N. Harbor City Blvd. in Melbourne, Fla., 32935. The public is invited to schedule an appointment to donate at this location.
Ed Sigman, Pest Control Technician at Slug-A-Bug, said that now is always the right time to give blood. “People tend to donate when there’s a big disaster like earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, but there’s always a desperate need for blood,” said Sigman, a Slug-A-Bug employee since April 2016.
Sigman is a longtime donor of whole blood, red blood cells and platelets. He has gone through the process 276 times to the tune of 34 gallons. When he suggested the blood drive idea to Steve Lum, President of Slug-A-Bug, Lum immediately told him to go ahead and schedule it.
Fueling Sigman’s passion as a donor is his closeness to people who have needed blood desperately. “I have friends who had cancer and some whose children had childhood leukemia,” Sigman said. “Cancer also runs rampant in my family, so I’ll do anything I can to help.”
The COVID pandemic has, unfortunately, slowed donations in many parts of the country. Because people have been so leery about going out in public during the past few years, blood supplies have dwindled to low levels.
During the Jan. 29 drive, Slug-A-Bug employees will be serving complimentary hamburgers, hotdogs and vegan burgers. Participants will be able to give platelets, not whole blood. The lifesaving procedure can take as long as three hours, because the platelets are extracted and everything else goes back into the donor’s body. A selection of movies is usually available to those waiting for the process to run its course.
Photo: Ed Sigman of Slug-A-Bug donates platelets at the OneBlood facility, one of his 276 times as a donor.