Dallas (Texas) – Blood Donors of America (BDA) hosted a virtual event to celebrate World Blood Donor Day and  11th BDA establishment day. The virtual event aimed to raise awareness of the importance and need for blood donations during this pandemic time of COVID-19. The virtual event also served to thank and appreciate all respected blood donors and Social Organizations, especially those who are actively donating, volunteering, and organizing blood drives to save lives by donating the blood even in these difficult times.

 

Since 2005, the World Health Organization (WHO) and every country celebrates this incredibly special World Blood Donor Day. BDA Texas State Committee also celebrated this special day by hosting a blood drive, with limited capacity due to COVID-19 restrictions, at the Carter BloodCare Center in Irving, Texas lead by General Secretary of BDA Texas, Ajay Bagale.

 

Mr. Lila Shrestha, Founding General Secretary of BDA Texas, moderated the virtual event organized by BDA Texas. BDA is a non-profit, non-religious, non-political, and charitable organization. It has dedicated to community service primarily by hosting blood drives and health education for 11 years.

 

Event’s feature speaker was a veteran lifelong blood donor, John Sheppard, 87, Guinness World Record Holder in Blood Donation. He addressed the meeting with his experiences and passed a message to the next generation of young blood donors.

 

Dr. Lila Raj Dahal, President of BDA, John Sheppard, Guinness World Record Holder in Blood Donation, Justin Liptrot, Blood Donor Consultant at Carter BloodCare , Dr. Sanjeeb Shrestha, Medical Practitioner and Founding Member of BDA Texas, Prof. Gopi Upreti, Philanthropist, Ajaya Satyal, President of INBD and past VP of BDA, Dinesh Sharma, President of Nepalese Society of Texas, Binod Rokka, Founding Member of BDA, Yamuna Bhattarai, NRN ICC Member and Life Member of BDA, Rajesh Aryal, NRN TX Chapter President, Bhushan Lal Shrestha, Regional Coordinator, BDA, Dr. Nanda Regmi, IPP BDA, Shiva Kaphle, Coordinator BDA Texas were the keynote speakers in the event.

 

BDA President, Dr. Lila Raj Dahal welcomed the virtual celebration, thanked blood donors, and encouraged more people to start donating when addressing its 11th BDA’s establishment and World Blood Donor Day.

 

Blood is critical for treatments and urgent interventions. It is vital for treating emergency of all kinds and it has a lifesaving role. So, blood donations are needed all over the world. Therefore, Blood donors are lifesavers!

 

Justin Liptrot is a senior blood donor consultant in CarterBlood care who has been an integral technical and managing partner of BDA in Dallas. His tremendous effort to arrange the technical crew and other logistic supports to host blood drives has been the cause of the success of BDA in Dallas, TX. Mr. Liptrot hunts for blood and never stops. He constantly coordinates blood drives for Carter BloodCare. And, Carter BloodCare provides integral technical support to BDA. He introduced veteran Blood Donors, a few words of experience, and messages to the new donors. BDA Texas has been hosting blood drives in collaboration with many social organizations. BDA team would like to highly appreciate and recognize all social organizations, blood donors, and Carter BloodCare, specially thanked to Justin Liptrot!

 

Dr. Sanjeeb Shrestha, Medical Doctor, founding executive member of BDA Texas and President of Texas Nepalese Medical Association (TNMA) expressed his remarks and experiences representing community server medical professionals. He said BDA has been the leader among our social organizations with its selfless work throughout the USA. BDA has been honored by Presidential recognition. BDA has an excellent network of grass-root volunteers and committees in most US cities. Texas Nepalese Medical Organization looks forward to working with BDA in our vaccine initiative in Texas. I am honored to be part of BDA and I congratulate BDA in its community service work and volunteer spirit!

 

Professor. Gopi Upreti, Philanthropist, Chief advisor and coordinator of Equality Foundation, and Professor at IAAS – Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science. He is also a Founder President of the Humanist Association of Nepal (HUMAN). He lives in Fairfax, Virginia.

 

Ajaya Satyal, President of INBD and past VP of BDA, shared his long journey in blood donation, 174 times.

 

Dinesh Sharma, President of the Nepalese Society of Texas (NST) talked about BDA’s mission and motive which will help Americans to understand the social activities of Nepalese Diaspora.

Binod Rokka, Founding Member (Ad-hoc) BDA; He has a story since 2009.

 

Yamuna Bhattarai, NRN ICC Member and Life Member of BDA shared her experience with BDA activities.

 

Rajesh Aryal, NRN, Texas Chapter President expressed his well-wishes for BDA’s activities.

 

Bhushan Lal Shrestha, Regional Coordinator (Mid-West), Convention Chair talked about the postponed convention due to COVID-19 situation.

 

Nanda Regmi, IPP BDA, Sr. Research Scientist at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, Ph.D. in Pharmacology and awarded by various American and other organizations such as American Society for Gene and Cell Therapy. He is also listed as Biomedical Scientist in the book “Who is Who in the USA – 2019”. Dr. Regmi shared the importance of blood in human lives and explained why one should be a blood donor and join BDA. BDA Texas committee is working continuously since 2013 and the committee was formed in presence of IPP, Dr. Nanda Regmi.

Shiva Kaphle, Founding Treasurer, Coordinator of BDA Texas, and Central Member of BDA. Blood Donations, 38 times. Texas is the heart of BDA and moment of pride in terms of community supports blood donations, first BDA convention, and life members of BDA.

 

BDA Texas was formed in first of December 2013, followings are the list of the founding committee, Basu Shrestha, Coordinator, Devi Acharya (David), Co-Coordinator, Lila Shrestha, General Secretary, Shiva Kafle, Treasure, Bikash Raj Neupane, Media Spoke Person, and Bala Ram Paudel , Hem Pathak, Makar Bajracharya , Resham Gharti ,  Sudarshan Dhital , Ira Acharya , Dr. Sanjib Shrestha were the  Executive Members. Team members are currently involved in various community volunteering programs.