With just 15 minutes of their time, dozens of We Energies employees are saving lives by donating blood to the American Red Cross in Southeast Wisconsin.
Members of the company’s Health and Disability Allies business resource group teamed up with the nonprofit to host a blood drive in early October.
“When you talk to the folks from the Red Cross, they’ll tell you exactly where their shortages are and where your blood is going,” said Mike Martz, We Energies service manager and blood drive volunteer. “It’s a great cause. You’re saving lives, plain and simple.”
He suspects that’s why turnout was so strong across all departments of the company — giving back is part of the culture.
“We’re all about safety and helping others,” said Rebecca Hanson, executive assistant. “This definitely goes hand in hand.”
“We’re such a public-facing company,” agreed Owen Trast, associate operations analyst in power operations. “We serve every person in our community and this blood is probably going to help someone in our community as well. It’s a really important cause.”
Every day, blood donors help patients of all ages. In fact, every two seconds, someone in the U.S. needs blood. The Red Cross estimates that together, We Energies employees saved 111 lives.
And that’s not the only way that We Energies is giving back. The company has been a proud partner of the American Red Cross in Southeast Wisconsin for decades. Over the past five years, the We Energies Foundation has donated more than $175,000 to the nonprofit.
To learn more about the We Energies Foundation, go to www.we-energies.com/foundation. Funding for the We Energies Foundation is made possible thanks to the generosity of WEC Energy Group shareholders and does not come from customer rates.
To find a blood drive near you, go to the American Red Cross website.