The Red Cross is seeking help finding blood drive sites, with tens of thousands of blood drives canceled nationwide due to the pandemic.

Mia Hubbert of the Red Cross Hudson Valley tells News 12 fear of contracting COVID-19 has prevented people from coming out to donate.

“There are places that we would have had blood drives that aren’t hosting blood drives because they’re not open to us,” says Hubbert.

She hopes people will roll up their sleeves to donate and inquire about possibly hosting a drive, too.

According to officials, there are more than a million uncollected blood donations due to canceled drives.

Pastor Scott Harris of Grace Bible Church in Wappinger says the process is simple and barely hurts.

Harris says his church has hosted two dozen blood drives since the pandemic began.

“We felt like this was something we could do to help the community,” says Harris. “Scripture is very clear that life is in the blood, so we think it’s very important to give blood and extend people’s lives.”

Every two seconds, someone in the country needs blood. Blood's shelf life is only 42 days, so the need for more drives is huge.

“God forbid we had a mass casualty situation, we could run through a blood supply in no time at all,” says Hubbert.

The Red Cross isn’t only accepting blood, it's asking for convalescent plasma too. With coronavirus hospitalization on the rise, the organization says the distribution of plasma has increased 250% in November, compared to September.