Labor Day blood drive set
With blood supplies "dangerously low," the American Red Cross is urging building trades workers and their families to give blood.

An opportunity to do so will take place during a blood drive on Labor Day in the basement of IBEW Local 58 on Abbott Street, east of Trumbull from 6:30 a.m.- 12:30 p.m. Walk-ins are welcome before and after the parade and festivities. The American Red Cross reports that they usually collect 30-40 pints of blood in this collection.

To illustrate the low blood supplies, as of Aug. 13, the Red Cross reports there was zero O-Negative blood (the universal blood type) in the Southeast Michigan Blood Services Region. And six of the eight blood types were below "optimal inventory levels."

"The Midwest is suffering an extreme shortage of many blood types," said Bill Salow of the Southeast Michigan American Red Cross. "Not only is Southeast Michigan affected, surrounding Red Cross regions, from which we routinely import needed blood products, have similar shortages. Although our collections staff is fully committed to 18 or 19 blood drives each day, many of the drives are not achieving their collection goals, often collecting substantially fewer units than they have collected in past years."

Local 58, which hosts a number of various local union members on Labor Day in their parking lot, is extending a challenge: "who has the most red-blooded members?" T-shirts for donors and a trophy will go to the union with the most blood donors.

Trades turning scrap into cash
Got scrap?

Building trades workers sidestep, toss out or ignore construction scrap on a daily basis on jobsites across Michigan. When the scrap eventually is hauled off to a landfill, lost is probably untold thousands of dollars in recyclable metal that could be reclaimed for cash - but isn't.

That's not the case these days at the Bloomfield Park development on Telegraph Rd. north of Square Lake. Greg Kopitz, an IBEW Local 58 electrician working for McSweeney Electric, approached general contractors Oliver Hatcher and IMC on the large residential and retail project and asked if a dumpster on the site could be devoted to collecting scrap metal for charity. They agreed.

Bolts, conduit, scrap ductwork - all of it is now being collected, and when the dumpster is filled, it will be hauled off to a scrapper for money. An effort that began three weeks ago has resulted in a 40-yard dumpster that's nearly filled with metallic scrap. "We'll turn the scrap into cash, and donate it to some charitable group, maybe Toys for Tots," Kopitz said last week. "A while ago, I saw re-bar in a dumpster, and thought that it was scrap that could be recycled, and money could be made and donated somewhere."

Added Kopitz: "Maybe this is an idea that will catch on at other jobsites."