Students save lives: Community commission hosts blood drive, deemed a success

One pint of blood. That’s all that it takes to save three lives and on Jan. 20 in the little Gym, 47 people stepped up to the challenge.

This drive was organized by the Community Commission in conjunction with the Stanford Blood Center. For a week, committee members went around school signing students and teachers for donating blood. The turnout was higher than expected and deemed a complete success by the committee members.

Facebook was a major factor in gaining publicity for the event, both for attracting donors and student volunteers.

“Since we had sign-ups through Facebook there were quite a few people who wanted to help and volunteer,” commission member, junior Samika Kumar, said.

There was also an online sign-up sheet for donors. Between online and paper commitments, 70 students signed up to donate and were given passes to leave class during assigned periods. In order to prevent overwhelming the nurses and Stanford medical staff members, students could only come in during specific times.

“We came in the morning at 7:00 and were helping [the nurses] with the details of the setup,” Kumar said.

The small gym transformed 45 minutes later into a blood-drawing station and was open for donors to begin walking in at 7:50 am.

Students decided to donate blood for a variety of reasons, for junior Sarah Menard, it had been a childhood dream.

“I remember when I was little, we would read about blood drives in science class. I also remember that after giving blood, we would get cookies,” Menard said. “That may or may not have been a factor in my decision.”

Despite motivation from students, some were unable to donate blood due to strict health regulations. Students who had been out of the country recently or whose hemoglobin levels were not high enough were not allowed to donate. Prior to signing-up, students had to be at least 110 pounds, healthy and 17-years-old.

Naturally, the students who were permitted, may have felt squeamish about watching their blood drain out of them or about being pricked with needles. Regardless, their desire to help those in need overpowered this concern.

“When I went in I was kind of nervous but my main worry was that I would not be able to donate blood,” Menard said.

Nurses performed a mandatory screening before volunteers were allowed to donate to ensure that their blood was safe to transfuse. Students who had been out of the country recently or had low hemoglobin levels were rejected.

For students who did pass the test, the nurses led them to reclined chairs and inserted a needle connected to a bag of blood in either their left or right median cubital vein. This is the preferred vein because of its proximity to the surface of the skin.

“It was kind of weird seeing my blood go out into a bag at first, but soon I was joking with the nurses,” Menard said.

Drawing a pint of blood can take anywhere from 10 minutes to 30 minutes depending on the flow of blood.

Student volunteers escorted the donors who had finished filling a pint of blood, to the canteen, where cookies, water, orange juice, ice cream and a variety of other snacks were provided to renourish the donors. Then, after 15 minutes at the canteen, students were permitted to return to their classrooms provided that they felt well enough to stand without assistance.

At 2:00 pm, the nurses began to close up, however, because of two last minute donors, the small gym was not cleared until after 3:50 pm.

However, despite this small mishap, the drive was considered to be a success with the potential for 141 lives being saved.

“I think the drive went pretty well, we got a lot of people, but I’m pretty sure we can get more at the next one. This was kind of a test run about how it would be,” Kumar said.