Pandemic, recent blizzard add urgency to Glen Ciano blood drive in Commack

The annual Glen Ciano Blood Drive held Saturday in Commack faced a more pressing mission in collecting blood donations after both the COVID-19 pandemic and a powerful blizzard that hit the East Coast recently cut down blood donations, organizers said.

Earlier in the week before the blood drive at the Commack Fire Department headquarters, Suffolk County officials said there had been a chronic shortage of blood supplies in New York since the start of the pandemic, with the Jan. 29 blizzard resulting in 1,000 fewer donations after blood drives were canceled and few donors turned out. Blood supplies are currently below the preferred five-day safety level, while blood types O-, O+, B- and A- remain at less than two-day levels, according to officials.

Rob Weisberg, blood drive coordinator and a Commack firefighter, told Newsday during the event that the blood supply shortages pose a challenge for local hospitals that blood drive organizers were hoping to help them meet.

The shortages "make it much more urgent that we get a good turnout, especially right now," Weisberg said Saturday morning.

A total of 302 units of blood were collected during the drive, setting a record high for the event, organizers said Saturday evening.

The organizers had aimed to collect and possibly exceed 222 units of blood in memory of Suffolk County Police Officer Glen Ciano, who was killed by a drunken driver in Commack on Feb. 22, 2009, while he was on duty.

Ciano’s son Dan Ciano, 32, of Bayport, a volunteer firefighter at the Bayport Fire Department, said this was the first year where his 2-year-old son, Max Ciano, Glen Ciano’s grandson, was able to come. The number of people who come every year to the event is something Dan Ciano said is special to him.

"You have people coming from all over the place," Dan Ciano said. "There’s a few guys here from Bayport, for example. That’s the touching part, to see how many people come, people who didn’t even know my dad and they go, ‘Oh, this is a good event to go do.’"

As they sat at a table eating after giving blood, Michael Janowitz, 55, and his wife Laurie Janowitz, 52, both from Coram, said they heard about the donor event through News 12 Long Island.

"We just wanted to donate since there was a shortage, and once we heard it was here and for Officer Ciano, we decided ‘Let’s just go and do it here’ " Michael Janowitz said.

"It’s just a good feeling," Laurie Janowitz said of why she donated blood. "You feel like you’re helping."