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Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Brian LaBadie helped to adorn Stanford's bloodmobile in hopes of attracting more blood donors.
Local uses bus decor to gain blood donations
By Kelly Wilkinson
Combating both his own cancer and the nation's dwindling supply of blood, Sunnyvale businessman Brian LaBadie recently spearheaded an effort to give the Stanford Blood Center a needed boost in donors.
LaBadie's plan involves giving the center's bloodmobile a facelift. He is the co-founder and ex-president of SuperGraphics, a Sunnyvale company that produces signs and wraps that adorn transit buses with large-scale, custom-fit advertisements. His company invented the technology to cover windows with the artwork while maintaining one-way visibility for the vehicle's driver and passengers.
And it is this technology and experience which he, his company, and 3Com donated to Stanford's bloodmobile in the hope of reinvigorating both the bloodmobile and potential blood donors. The 39-foot mobile is now wrapped in purple and bears the pictures of several smiling patients, doctors, and workers.
"I went to Stanford a couple of months ago and noticed the bloodmobile, but it was just a sterile- looking bus that didn't look very friendly," LaBadie said, who has been receiving treatments at Stanford for his cancer and a bone marrow transplant.
"So I thought it would be a lot more friendly to make it into something like this," he says, holding up a prototype bus that sits on his desk. He hopes that the novelty of the bloodmobile will generate more interest and as a result, more blood donations.
"It's stunning and very eye-catching to see it because the people are so much larger than life," LaBadie said. "Now, if you pull it into a parking lot, everyone would want to come look at it."
SuperGraphics and 3Com jointly funded the $10,000 project, and the unveiling took place two weeks ago, which coincided with the U.S Surgeon General's announcement that blood shortages might occur within the next year if donations don't pick up their sluggish pace
Caryn Huberman, spokesperson for Stanford's bloodmobile, said that although the Center's blood supplies fluctuate every day, the demand for blood increases annually by 1 to 2 percent a year. Donations have hovered around 5 percent of all eligible donors "for a very long time."
"We hope that as the mobile goes down Bay Area highways and byways, that people will be reminded and remind their neighbors and friends and say, 'Ah-ha, I've got to do that good community service,' " Huberman said.
She said the bloodmobile makes daily rounds, winding throughout Silicon Valley, and is responsible for collecting around half of Stanford's overall blood donations
Huberman said officials at the blood center had never discussed decorating the mobile. She added that even if they had thought of it, it probably would have been too expensive to consider.
"So this was really a wonderful opportunity and a fabulous gift," she said. "And I'm quite sure it's going to help because the whole wrap itself brings a smile to people's faces."
LaBadie hopes to extend that response to a broader audience with his plans to approach more bloodmobiles across the country for similar transformations.
"This is something I'd really like to tackle," he said. "If it helps people to feel less scared about giving blood, then it helps."
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
