Coming into a blood drive any running organization must have a goal. With this being their first year running the blood drive, the Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) failed to meet their donation goal for blood on Oct. 28. The Vitalant sponsored blood drive was still not a failure. 

Prior to this year, Key Club organized this event making Hosa inexperienced in the field. All students were encouraged to donate food items to room 4134 and in return received one volunteer hour. Additionally, they could volunteer during the drive in order to obtain additional hours. Both HOSA and Science National Honor Society (SNHS) members volunteered at the drive by either giving blood or helping to check student and adult donors in. The donations of food and time provided benefited the drive allowing for people unable to donate blood to help. 

“[The blood drive] was a huge success and so much fun,” Abby Zhang ‘27 said. “I volunteered at the front desk and I liked it because it was meaningful and a good use of my time.”

In order to give blood, donors are  required to be in good health. According to Vitalant, donors must be above the age of 16 and weigh more than 110 pounds with additional requirements for females under 5-foot-5 . Any donor under the age of 18 is required to bring a signed consent form with their parent or guardian’s signature.

During the date of the donation, it is recommended that donors eat two hours before their scheduled appointment and to drink lots of non-alcoholic liquids. Additionally, after donating, it is required that donors do not donate whole blood again until an eight week period is up.

Once the donors arrive for their scheduled appointment, a HOSA or SNHS member will check them in to ensure the paperwork is all correct and matches their IDs. From there the donor will go for a health check, inspecting their hemoglobin levels, temperature, pulse, and blood pressure.

After the health check the donor will be hooked up to a venipuncture, where a needle is inserted into a patient’s vein. If the donor is doing a whole blood donation then it will take around 10 minutes for one pint of blood to be drawn. For power red, the donation draws 500mL of blood and takes about an hour to an hour and a half.

“[My experience with the blood drive] was pretty good. They were really fast and they gave me all the snacks I needed,” Liliene Anderson ‘26 said. “I donated because I think it’s really important to donate blood for people, especially if you can.”

While their goal of 64 donors was not met, they ended up receiving about 30 pints of blood, which corresponds with around 90 lives saved. 

“I like the blood drive, because they have this little thing on their advertising pamphlet, and it says you can save three lives. So it makes you feel good knowing that you’re gonna help people,” Ella Sullivan ‘26 said.