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The American Red Cross came to be nearly 150 years ago. The global humanitarian effort was the idea of a young Swiss man named Henri Dunant who bore witness to a battlefield in Italy in which there lay the wounded and dying with no medical help.
It took Dunant about 20 years along with the help of Clara Barton to establish the Red Cross in America. Clara, who in her own travels became intrigued with these efforts, eventually became the president of the American Red Cross and led the organization for 23 years.
Today, the American Red Cross provides services such as disaster relief, Armed Forces Emergency Services and the biomedical and health areas which provide lifesaving blood and tissue.
Wright & Filippis holds three to four blood dives every year in which employees and the public can participate. The company held its first blood drive of the year on January 19th 2007 at the Rochester Hills office. In 2006, Wright & Filippis gave 85 pints of blood and saved 255 lives. The company is well on its way to toping that this year.