Vernon Hills business' blood drive a chance to do 'something good' for the community

Mike Aukerman, CEO of DreamMaker Bath & Kitchen, started making plans for a blood drive at his Vernon Hills business back in December.

At the time, he just wanted to do something "nice and good" for the community. But because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Tuesday's drive turned out to be far more crucial than Aukerman could have imagined months ago.

"We've all heard on the news how crucial blood donations are these days. I've heard a lot of events that were scheduled have been canceled," he said. "We are taking all the proper safety precautions - social distancing, masks. Just trying to be as safe as we can while supporting the community as best we can."

Forty-four donors gave blood, and DreamMaker employees were ready to step in for no-shows. Each donor received bottles of hand sanitizer, bottled water and various coupons, including from the event co-sponsor, Sport Clips Haircuts of Libertyville.

Aukerman, who has customer contracts ready to fulfill once the stay-at-home order is lifted, hopes to hold another drive in the future.

"This has been an overwhelming success and in roughly six months, to do it again, I will start out and ask them to do a two-day event from the very beginning" he said.

But until then, he is content with the success of Tuesday's drive.

"What I get out of this is knowing I did something good," he said. "Helping some people that I will never know in my life, that doesn't matter if I know them, just the idea doing something nice and helping people."