Central Illinois Community Blood Center, Community Blood Services of Illinois, and Mississippi Valley Regional Blood Center have all been united under a name change announced yesterday.
The 3 entities will now all collectively be known as ImpactLife. CEO Mike Parejko says it’s the culmination of a decades-long wish to re-brand the group under one umbrella: “Most may not know it, but over the past 10 years, we have operated under three different names: Mississippi Valley Regional Blood Center here in Davenport, Iowa; Central Illinois Community Blood Center out of our Springfield, Illinois location; the Community Blood Services of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. The previous names came as a result of mergers in 2010 and 2011, which gave us three different identities. Today, we mark a milestone with the launch of our new name and brand. The new name unifies all of us – our team, our blood donors, our volunteers, and our service area under one single identity – ImpactLife. The new name emphasizes our mission, not our geography and the change is only to our name and logo, not to our mission, vision, or values of which we are very proud.”
Chairman of the Board of Directors Chad Everitt says that despite the pandemic, the group successfully handled several thousands of units of donated blood across their 4-state service region: “In 2020, even with all the blood drive cancellations we saw and continue to see in this COVID-19 pandemic, we registered more than 212,000 blood donors and held more than 4,300 mobile blood drives, and our inventory management and distribution teams handled nearly 300,000 blood components serving 120 hospitals in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, and Wisconsin.”
Parejko and Everitt say the rebrand speaks to the core values of the group in that they impact life each and every day through the gifts from their donors and their ability to save lives across the Midwest.