The Colfax Library is holding a blood drive this Wednesday.

For more than a year, the library has organized these blood drives with the Inland Northwest Blood Center, said Sheri Miller, the youth services librarian.

According to INBC’s Web site, the organization has been around since Sept. 30, 1945, in Spokane as the city’s first and only community-based and nonprofit blood provider.

The blood donated through this drive will go to hospitals around the area such as Whitman County Medical and institutions in Pullman and Moscow, Miller said.

“It’s good to donate blood,” said Alicia Neely, INBC recruitment coordinator. “It’s good for your body to replenish your own blood supply ... In the process, you help to save up to three people’s lives by donating one unit of blood. That is a huge thing. That is a good heartfelt feeling to know you are helping sick patients out there and possibly helping save somebody’s life.” Before donating blood, applicants are encouraged to drink fluids and eat a nutritional meal before coming in, she said. Once at the library, applicants must have photo identification on them to register and donate. INBC staff screen applicants to determine whether they are eligible to donate.

“You register, and there’s a medical questionnaire you fill out to see if you’re eligible to donate,” INBC specialist Mark Fisher said. “There’s a mini-physical involved, which (checks) your blood pressure levels. We take a little blood sample to see if your hemoglobin level is high enough to donate, because we don’t want to take anything from you that you might need. If you pass all that, you donate blood.” The whole blood donation process takes 30 to 40 minutes, he said.

How recently the individual donated is one of the factors affecting eligibility, Fisher said. Donors have to wait two months or 56 days between donations.

“We want your body to replace the blood that we take and also to allow the blood cells to mature, so we’re giving healthy blood to people,” he said.

Other stipulations affecting eligibility are body piercings, Miller said. Potential donors are required to wait a full year after getting a piercing before they can be eligible to donate blood.

“They have to make sure that they haven’t had a tattoo recently,” he said. “Or that they haven’t traveled to certain places in the world because there are some diseases out there, that if you travel to certain places, they might become susceptible to the disease. That’s what they mean by screening.” Eligibility requirements and specifications can be found on the INCB Web site.

The blood drive takes place from 1 to 6 p.m. today at the Colfax Library.