Lindsay Van Zele, INB’s communications coordinator, has been the driving force behind INB blood drives for the last six years. She coordinates the dates with the Blood Center, then reaches out to the INB staff to encourage donations.

“INB makes it easy for me to organize and encourage people to attend,” she says. “Just as it’s in our employee-DNA to donate to United Way or take part in a charity golf outing or 5K run, we feel it’s our obligation… our duty… to give blood.”

Van Zele, who loves to throw a good party, often “themes” the drives to make them more fun. There was the “Twilight Blood Drive,” she says, “When you can live forever, what do you live for?”  And an all-out Valentine’s event . . . most appropriate for a blood drive. “One year I had (Stephen King’s) Children of the Corn play throughout the drive.” Of course she used paper blood droplets on the ground to direct people to the drive.

All of her hard work didn’t go unnoticed when the bank earned the Blood Center’s “Bank on Us to Save Lives Challenge” a few years ago.

INB usually hosts four on-site blood drives each year. Our next drive is from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday, May 27 at our downtown Springfield location, 322 E. Capitol Ave. You are invited to donate.  Just stop by the Main Branch lobby and head downstairs to our lower level!