OPINION | National Donor Week 2020 perfect time to consider donating blood and saving lives at Tamworth Lifeblood Centre

But at this party, the free drink was a milkshake, the hot food mini sausage rolls pulled from a commercial pie warmer.

It was the first time I'd been to my local donor centre and given blood.

My group of like-minded student friends had two main objectives: first, to donate as much blood as possible and win the uni competition, and second, to take a break from dining hall food and score a meal.

It very quickly became so much more than that.

I began donating regularly, and now I'm a proud part of the Northern Daily Leader Lifeblood team.

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For National Donor Week this week, I interviewed a man who had donated plasma or blood more than 400 times over half a century. He had the highest stats in Tamworth, but he didn't hesitate when I asked if he'd continue donating. He reckons he has one hundred still left in him.

Inspired, I signed up to give my seventh donation, but my first plasma.

For someone blessed with health, it's such an easy thing to do. You give so little for what so many humans can get out of it. You can literally save lives, sitting back in a comfy chair watching cooking shows on the Lifeblood centre's telly.

And health is terrifyingly fluid. I'm all too aware I could need the help of a blood donor at any point in my life. Since I started donating, I sure have had friends and family that survived off someone else's blood.

A few days after donating, a text pops up on my phone and tells me exactly where my blood has gone to help people. It's heartwarming.

The milkshakes and the pies and the cheese and crackers and the choccies and, while I'm being honest, the stack of gossip magazines, might be what brought me to the party, but they certainly aren't the things that keep me coming back.

- Anna Falkenmire is an ACM journalist