Ashley Park spent months of her teenage years in a hospital room, cut off from most of the outside world. But even during that lonely period, the actress says she never felt completely alone. The ‘Emily in Paris’ star was 15 when she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia, a fast-moving cancer affecting the blood and bone marrow. Her treatment at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbour, Michigan, involved intensive chemotherapy as well as frequent blood and platelet transfusions.Now 35, Park looked back at that experience while encouraging more people to donate blood. She said the strangers who donated blood during her treatment played a vital role in helping her survive.“My treatment called for killing nearly all of your cells within your body, including the cancer cells,” she told PEOPLE. “So really the only way to rebuild my body was through blood donations.”
Ashley Park was isolated for months during her leukaemia treatment
Park spent about eight months in intensive treatment and says she was extremely isolated for much of that time. “I was really isolated for about eight months,” she said.There was, however, one unusual connection to the outside world. Park was receiving blood from people she had never met. “There are probably hundreds, if not thousands of people in the Ann Arbor local community who gave me their blood, and I can say very tangibly, I wouldn’t be here today if it had not been for them.”Speaking on TODAY on September 24, 2026, Park recalled how those transfusions could even make the long hospital days feel a little less lonely. She remembered thinking that during a transfusion, it almost felt as if someone was there with her.At 15, survival was obviously the main focus. Park says she did not fully understand the scale of what those anonymous donors had done for her until much later.
Why Ashley Park is now talking about blood donation
That realisation is now at the centre of Park’s latest campaign. The actress has teamed up with Abbott and the Big Ten Conference for the ‘We Give Blood’ initiative, which is encouraging students, alumni and fans of the 18 Big Ten universities to donate blood.The campaign runs through December 4, 2026, with the university that records the most eligible donations receiving a $1 million grant from Abbott for student or community health. For Park, the Big Ten connection makes the campaign even more personal. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 2013 and grew up in Ann Arbor, where she spent years surrounded by the intense college football culture.“Coming from Michigan and growing up in Ann Arbor, I spent four years of college with season football tickets. I’m very aware of the spirit of competition within these Big Ten schools. What an incredible cause to use that spirit for,” she said.
Ashley Park says young blood donors are especially important
Park is also hoping the campaign can bring more younger people into blood donation. She pointed out that a significant portion of existing blood donors are older, while donations from younger people have been declining. Abbott said the U.S. needs blood every two seconds and that human blood has no substitute.The ‘Emily in Paris’ actress believes turning blood donation into a friendly college competition could help make it less intimidating for people who have never donated before. She says the goal is not only to address the immediate shortage, but also to encourage a new generation of regular donors.“I think everybody has been affected in some way, if not personally, by cancer or critical illnesses,” Park said. “And I think that it’s hard sometimes to feel like, what can I do tangibly? What can I personally do to help somebody?”For her, donating blood is one very direct answer. “This is absolutely a way that someone can be a vital part of helping someone else’s life, and being part of something bigger than yourself.”
‘I wouldn’t be here today’ without anonymous blood donors
Park admits that before getting involved with the campaign, she had not spent much time thinking about the individual people behind the blood transfusions that helped her through cancer treatment. “Before I found out about this campaign, candidly, I hadn’t even thought about all of those people who had helped save my life,” she said.That has changed now. “And so, for me, it was just a nice chapter of gratitude, just recognising that all of the aspects of my life today are thanks to those people.”She also understands that donating blood does not come with the reward of knowing exactly whose life it helped. “It takes a lot to be able to give part of yourself and not know the face or who it’s going to,” she says, describing the act as “generosity that is life-saving.”Park wants to be that reminder for donors — proof that the person on the other side of a blood donation is not just a number. “Understanding that people took 10 minutes out of their day just to give part of themselves to me, even if they would never know that it came to me,” she said.“At the time, it’s just about survival each day and getting through each moment. And now as I reflect, I realise what an incredible impact that has on just one person. It means a lot to me.”For someone who once depended on anonymous donors while fighting leukaemia at 15, Park’s message now comes from personal experience: a blood donation may take only minutes, but for the person waiting for it, it can mean everything.
