Taylor Swift Ticket Winner | Kentucky Blood Center

Owen is a Longtime Spencer Christian Church Blood Drive Donor

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Cherri Owen from Fisherville is the winner of Kentucky Blood Center’s Taylor Swift ticket giveaway.

Owen, 76, was the lucky donor randomly selected to win two tickets to Swift’s Nov. 3 show in Indianapolis along with a $500 gift card to assist with travel. All donors who registered to give blood at KBC between May 28 and June 29 were entered to win the tickets to Swift’s final Eras Tour concert in the U.S.

The longtime KBC donor’s feeling of excitement immediately went to her 16-year-old granddaughter, Lilly, a diehard Swiftie who will use one of the two tickets.

“If you could have seen her face when I told her,” Owen said. “She kept saying, ‘Gigi, is this fake? Are you sure it’s not a hoax?’ I said, ‘I don’t think it’s fake. I think it’s the real thing.’ ‘Well, are you sure?’ I said, ‘I’m not 100% sure, Lilly, but they’re sending us some information, so we should know pretty soon.’ So, she was very excited.”

No hoax here – Owen was randomly selected from the 9,233 donors who registered to give blood during the four-and-a-half-week promotion. All donors received a Taylor Swift-inspired T-shirt.

Owen has donated regularly with KBC since 2019, all at the Spencer Christian Church Blood Drive in Fisherville. When Owen saw the details of the giveaway on a postcard mailing and thought of her granddaughter, she knew she couldn’t miss the opportunity, but Owen’s motivation for giving goes beyond the opportunity to see the 14-time Grammy winner.

She said her father was a longtime donor, and both of her daughters recently battled health scares that could have required blood transfusions. Owen also knows a neighbor that needed blood transfusions during a heart transplant surgery.

“If I’m able to do it, I don’t see a reason not to,” Owen said of donating blood. “I just think it’s a good thing if I can do it. The possibility of the unexpected, that your child or a friend of yours might need blood at any moment motivates me to give. It doesn’t take but an hour, and you can help somebody live. If it’s not available, it creates a major crisis.”

Putting blood on the shelves for more than 70 hospitals KBC supplies was at the heart of the ticket giveaway. Blood donations historically dwindle during the summer because of warm-weather activities, family vacations and no school, but the need for blood and transfusions often increase over the summer months for those very same reasons.

Comparing the same dates on the calendar in previous years, blood donations increased by 8.2% at KBC from 2023 to 2024 during the promotion period and 18.4% from 2022 to 2024. A whopping 17.2% of those donations were from first-time KBC donors, up from 11% in 2023 and 10.6% in 2022.

“The most important measurement from the giveaway is the current supply of blood for the one in four patients who will need a blood transfusion in their lifetime,” said Mandy Brajuha, VP of external relations at KBC. “To come out of a holiday weekend like Independence Day – when donations almost always go down – with a healthy supply of blood speaks volumes to the outpouring of support we had during this promotion. To everyone who came out, thank you. If you were a first-time donor, we hope you had a positive experience and consider coming back in the future to save local lives.”

The need for blood is constant, and KBC is encouraging all donors to keep blood donation a priority, especially with half the summer to go. KBC is currently offering a “Donor Vibes” T-shirt to donors.

Donor centers, listed below, are open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mobile drive locations can be found at my.kybloodcenter.org/donor/schedules/county. Donors can visit kybloodcenter.org or call 800.775.2522 to schedule an appointment. Appointments are preferred but walk-ins are welcome.

Blood donors must be at least 17 years old (16 with parental consent), weigh at least 110 pounds, be in general good health, show a photo I.D. and meet additional requirements.

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About Kentucky Blood Center

KBC, the largest independent, full-service, nonprofit blood center in Kentucky, has been saving local lives since 1968. Licensed by the FDA, KBC’s sole purpose is to collect, process and distribute blood for patients in Kentucky. KBC provides services in 90 Kentucky counties and has donor centers in Lexington, Louisville, Frankfort, Pikeville, Somerset and the Tri-County area (Corbin).