Fans of the True Blood Players know and love SookieBonTemps and her fellow players on Twitter. For those new to this group of virtual thespians, they assume the identities of the characters from Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire/Sookie Stackhouse novels, and the HBO series, True Blood. Within these personas, they play out the stories presented on the show, as it airs, and even more exciting, they present original stories, all in 140 character entries, on Twitter. For more information on the group, check out my interview with some of the core members of the second season players here on GSB.

This group is known and respected for not only breaking ground and making trends in fandom, but for using their powers for good in “the real world”, too. They are credited with raising money for charity through a Twitter production of an original story written for their group. Now, they forge new paths to help others, once again. The group will be holding the first Twitter virtual blood drive on Thursday, December 3, 2009.

To “hear it” straight from the waitress, herself, here is SookieBonTemps’ message to all the fans of True Blood, the True Blood Players, Geek Speak Blog, and doing good for your fellow man, woman, geek or freak.

The True Blood Players on Twitter are pulling together Bites for Blood, the first ever virtual blood drive held on Twitter.  Our goal is simple: we’re trying to fill a virtual blood vial with over a half-million drops of blood donated by our Twitter friends to help raise awareness for the American Red Cross.

Bites for Blood kicks off on Thursday, December 3 at 9:00/10pm CDT/EST with one night of virtual kissing and biting booths manned by the True Blood Players characters on Twitter.  Participants simply:

1. Go to the Bites for Blood page and choose the human or vampire you’d like to have kiss or bite you.
2. Click on their badge.
3. By clicking, you will be directed back to Twitter where you’ll tweet your support and receive a kiss or bite from the character you chose.
4. The page will remain open until Sunday, December 5th at 9/10pm CDT/EST so that you can continue donating drops to Bites for Blood.

It’s an easy and fun way to show support for the Red Cross. And if it inspires participants to take the next step and make a real life blood donation or contribution to the Red Cross, then even better!

For more information on the event and how to get involved go to Bites for Blood .  We’ve set up links on the page to help make it easy for people to tweet the link or share it on Facebook!

Geek Gyrl, here, again…

As you can see these folks are the best kind of bleeding hearts, so tune in to Twitter Thursday, December 3rd, play with your favorite vamps, fang bangers, shapechangers, flamboyant short order cooks, humans and of course, the Geek Speak Blog’s favorite waitress, and help raise awareness for the American Red Cross.