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Blood Battle 2021 Results

Posted on: November 23, 2021 - 11:01am

The City of Negaunee and City of Ishpeming teamed up with the U.P. Regional Blood Center for the cities inaugural Blood Battle, a fight to fill the blood bank. Both City Managers Nate Heffron (Negaunee) and Craig Cugini (Ishpeming) have pledged to hold this event annually.

The cities competed by asking people to donate blood to the U.P. Regional Blood Center, the city with the most pints will receive an honorary blood drive trophy.

Negaunee was challenged by Ishpeming after Cugini learned that there was a blood shortage in the UP. Being a former member of the military, Cugini sprang into action thinking of creative ways to draw in donors. He settled on holding friendly competition between both communities.

“We both thought it was a clever idea to play off of the rivalry that both schools had between each other, Cugini said.

Ishpeming held their event on November 5, at the Ishpeming Senior Center and Negaunee five-days later at the Negaunee High School. Resulting in Ishpeming drawing 24 pints of blood and Negaunee 53 pints, totaling 77 pints! Each pint of blood represents saving capacity of three lives or a total of 231 lives saved due to this event.

“I want to thank all of our sponsors and especially the Negaunee National Honor Society who we partnered with to make this happen. I also want to extend a special thank you to all those students and residents that came in to give the gift of life, your donation will go a long way to support someone in need”, Heffron Said.

‘This was a great showing of community support! I am not disappointed that we lost; I am excited that we were able to do something more important, give blood”, Cugini said.

A trophy presentation will be held at the Negaunee High School, on November 30th, at 9:30AM.

Both Cities expressed thanks to the U.P. Regional Blood Center, Lake Superior Community Partnership, Midtown Bakery, Super One Foods of Negaunee, Love and Bicycles, Campfire Coffee, Jackson’s Pit, Fox Negaunee, Irontown Pasties, Smarty’s Saloon, and Irontown Talk, for their contributions making this a successful inaugural event.

Questions concerning this release may be directed to the attention of City Manager, Nate Heffron at (906) 475-7700 ext. 11, and City Manager Craig Cugini at (906) 485-1091 ext. 204.