Donate blood, be a guitar rock god

While "School's Out" for the summer, the Heartland Blood Centers hopes it'll be "Raining Blood" at its upcoming blood drives.

Well, not quite raining blood.

But they hope the newest game in the "Guitar Hero" franchise, which in the past has included the Slayer song and Alice Cooper's summer rock anthem, will entice people to come out during seven blood drives in the coming weeks.

All donors can enter into a "Guitar Hero IV" competition with the winner receiving the game on the game platform of their choice.

"We know it's a popular game at this time," Heartland's Director of Mobile Recruitment Jill Bernard said. "We're trying to attract the younger donor with this promotion."

Second place will win a Best Buy gift card and third place receives a Heartland Blood Centers sweat shirt.

The first blood drive will be from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. today at Aurora Heartland Blood Centers, 1200 N. Highland Ave. Other locations include Schaumburg, South Elgin and Plainfield.

Donors who enter the competition will be notified by e-mail or phone when all competitors finish.

Every year during summer months, blood donations decrease dramatically, due in part to the lack of high school blood drives.

The center supplies 33 hospitals in Northern Illinois and Northwest Indiana. Right now, they have a shortage of type O-negative blood. The promotion is an effort to offset the blood losses and the shortage, Bernard said.

"We don't have summer school drives," she said. "We struggle with our inventory during the summer. We're losing that whole group that makes up about 25 percent of donations."

In the past, Heartland has offered coupons for Colonial Ice Cream - which it will also do in these drives - to help encourage summer donations.

So far, Bernard said the Aurora drive has had great interest.

While most drives done by local community groups and churches bring about 25 to 30 units of blood, Heartland already has 70 appointments, and Bernard expects about 120 people to show up in Aurora.

"We encourage everyone to come out and bring your friends out," she said. "It's one way you can save a life. It costs you nothing and it's just about an hour of your time."