On Wednesday, November 20th, the Community Service club partnered with the American Red Cross to organize the second annual EF blood drive in Robinson Gym. Students, faculty, and staff volunteered to assist with registration, logistics, and refreshments for this life-saving event.
According to Ms. Bobby, who leads the Community Service club, the goal was 30 blood donors this year and 31 people participated. “We could have done more,” Ms. Bobby said, “but it’s still a really good job. I’m really proud of the students who tried it for the first time.”
As Ms. Bobby said, “I started donating blood every year when I was still in college, so I think this was a really good idea to bring this to campus and help more people.” The club emailed the Red Cross to say that EF was willing to donate blood, and chose the best place to have this event.
To promote the event, Ms. Bobby said, “we advertised around the campus by making posters, [discussing the blood drive] in advisory meetings, and telling the faculty.”
Students and faculty who donated spoke to the International Changemaker about their experience.
According to Adrian, a 12th grader who donated, “I’ve donated blood three times, and since it’s just blood, I don’t feel anxious about it. Being able to assist others through this event makes me very happy.”
For many students and faculty, however, donating blood was a new experience and there was some anxiety about the process.
“It was my first time donating blood, so I felt a bit nervous,” Gilbert, an 11th grader, said. However, he donated blood with the hope of “helping save someone’s life.”
“This is my first time donating blood, and I was nervous and feeling weird,” said Ms Foley. “I heard on a podcast that donating blood is the easiest way to help people, and every bag of blood can truly save a person’s life. I signed up to donate blood after learning that our school was hosting a blood drive.”
Along with workers from the Red Cross, members of the Community Service club were on hand to help blood donors through the process and ease anxieties.
The Red Cross and the volunteers from the club strongly recommend eating snacks and taking a rest after the donation. Therefore, they prepared a table with some sweet snacks that included cookies, chips, and some juice to let the donors gain energy quickly and consume iron-rich foods that help them psychologically and physically. This helps them to replenish and avoid donors experiencing dizziness or any physical symptoms due to low blood sugar or anemia after drawing blood.
The American Red Cross is a nonprofit organization that provides a variety of services and helps people in need. The blood drive service is one of these services and they organize and promote blood drives by recruiting donors and having well-trained staff collect the donated blood. They ensure the safety of the process and distribute the collected blood to hospitals and medical facilities in need. They have supplied about 40% of the nation’s blood. Their mission is to “always aim to prevent and relieve suffering with every action.”
Multiple pieces of equipment were used in the blood drive event. Blood was collected with needles and tubing and transferred into a bag. The machine “Power Red” plays the most efficient role in the blood drive. Power Red is a specialized machine that allows the separation of red blood cells from other components during the donation and ensures the donor’s safety by returning their plasma and platelets to them in one donation.
Red cells are stored in refrigerators at 6ºC for up to 42 days. Plasma and cryo are frozen and stored in freezers for up to one year. Frozen blood can maintain its mass and blood molecules. If low-temperature refrigeration is not used, it can cause blood molecules to deteriorate and coagulate when exposed to heat.
The American Red Cross uses the donated blood to help people in need. They collect blood from donors and then sell the blood to approximately 2,500 hospitals and medical facilities across the country. According to Statista, the price for one pint of leukoreduced blood was $214 in 2021. This means that EF donated approximately $6634 worth of blood.
Yasmin Bahar, Ingram Chung, Ai Hiruma, Riana, Hijiri Nakamatsu, Kira Marie, Kristian Stanek, Hannah Tran, Queenie Wang, and Han Xiao contributed reporting to this article.
