2008 Woodie Awards
Blood donors line up to save lives
Daniel Gross
News | 4/3/08
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Gail Price, benefits specialist in the office of human resources, said 90 percent of those who gave one unit of blood on Tuesday and Wednesday were students.
"As a citizen you should always want to help somebody that is in need," supervising nurse Kelly Dickey said. "It could be you down there on the table or somewhere needing blood. It is always great that you could help someone that's in need."
On Tuesday, 20 donors registered and a total of 59 participated in the drive including walk-in donors. Wednesday's morning session had 39 donors participate before noon, according to Price.
Dickey said it was a smaller turnout than prior drives on campus she has participated in.
According to Price a lot more students and groups are taking this on as a volunteer activity for community service. The Delta Sigma Phi fraternity helped sponsor this week's blood drive.
Cedric Dana, a fraternity member volunteering at the blood drive, said one of his fraternity brothers did a lot of work setting up and organizing.
The University has held blood drives on campus since the 1950s, according to Price, who has coordinated the efforts for at least 15 years.
"As a chief of shock trauma said it, it's not up to him to make sure blood is on the shelf, it is up to us as coordinators and donors. Many times he needs that to even get a person to a point to try and save their life and to stabilize them," Price said.
Each unit of blood saves three lives and the blood donated can go toward a number of different patients for surgeries, newborn babies, accident patients, leukemia patients, and cancer patients, according to Price.
According to Price, 95 percent of all Americans will need blood at some time in their life. "That really puts you at the mercy of your fellow person," she said.
Many volunteers and donors at the drive said they felt it's important to help others. Delrico Johnson, a freshman exercise science major, was one of the volunteers in charge of the canteen area on Wednesday.
"It helps people out because there's always someone that needs blood and the more and more people give, the more lives they save," he said.
The next blood drive will be held on June 10, and the first drive when students return in the fall semester will be Wednesday, Sept. 3.
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Daryl G. Gross
posted 4/03/08 @ 9:37 PM EST
Several years ago, I organized a blood drive through my local church. I was impressed with the number of people who were anxious to participate. It was a huge sucess. (Continued…)
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