Blood drive joins health walk among driver-led initiatives at MATS

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“Give so that others may live” runs the tagline for the Friday blood drive (11 a.m. to 4 p.m., booth #91470 outdoors) to be held at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville this week. It’s an initiative led by the Driver Health Council of the Trucking Solutions Group, a crew of owner-operators initiating dialogue about all manner of trucking topics. The health council is designed to help trucking professionals lead a healthier lifestyle out on the road through exercise and nutrition. The council holds regular discussions sharing exercise tips and nutritional information with each other and other owner-operators and drivers.

“Whenever there is a crisis or a need within a community, truck drivers and others within the trucking industry are some of the first to step up and respond,” says Linda Caffee, professional driver and chairman of the Trucking Solutions Group Driver Health Council. “We’re all in this together! This blood drive provides the needed supplies to ensure that the American Red Cross can respond when they are needed.”

The organization’s members are credited for suggesting the 61+ Health Awareness Walk I wrote about last week to the trucking shows organizers and the inaugural blood drive and led the efforts to plan both the walks and the blood drive.

“The blood drive came about when we were discussing” one of the four walks held last year, says Caffee, owner-operator with her husband, Bob, leased to FedEx Custom Critical. “I had wrist IDs made for everybody” in the group, she says, “and I was figuring out that very few people in our group knew their blood type. The card you get when you give blood tells you what your blood type is. So it preceded from there.”

CaffeefinishedTo learn more about the Trucking Solutions Group Driver Health Council contact Linda at [email protected], or look for her at the health walk and blood drive events or at the FedEx Custom Critical booth at the conference this week. At the booth, you can check out their brand-new straight 2012 Freightliner Cascadia expediting unit, custom spec’ed and put together with Stoops Freightliner and Bolt Custom Trucks. It’s pictured here just after the box body was added in production.

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The 61+ Driver Health Awareness Walk takes places this Saturday morning, April 2. Find details about the walk here. And here’s the Facebook event page for the walk.