You grew up in the wealthiest county in the state, some selection bias there. Look on google maps for blood donation center in the philadelphia area. Zoom out to get the suburbs. There are what, 20 or so sites listed, for an area with a population of 6 or 7 million people? That is insufficient. Even now the closest one to me is actually a drug testing site, not a donation center. Its probably at least a 30 minute drive (in bad traffic) to get to the closest listed donation center.

I grew up in lower bucks. There were no dedicated blood centers. Before I was 22 I had never donated at anything but a mobile bloodbank. My parents hauled themselves to mobile blood banks whenever they wanted to do it. The first actual dedicated blood center I donated at was blood centers of the pacific in San Francisco. I was shocked that someone would actually build a dedicated site just for donating blood. But then later I saw Oregon did it too.

Also there's this: https://www.inquirer.com/health/blood-donation-shortage-phil...