On Friday, April 2, between nine am and two pm, over 100 students donated blood in the White Gym. The blood drive was the culmination of weeks of planning and coordination by the school's Key Club.
"We start about a month in advance. We organize volunteers, recruit donors, get advertising out, make sure donors are eligible, make sure everybody knows their appointments and the requirements [of giving blood]..." explained senior Kerri Short, co-coordinator of the event with Saiyare Refai. Throughout the organization stages, continued Short, "We meet with our Red Cross representative, and she helps with recruitment and planning and stuff."
"The Blood Drive day," said Refai, "we come here at 6:45 [am] and set up, unloading the supplies, and then work here all day, supervising and helping out, so we end around four [in the afternoon]."
In order to be a give blood, prospective donors must have health iron levels and meet certain height and weight requirements. The number of willing donors for this drive led to optimism among club members.
"All of our volunteers from Key Club, when we were signing people up, we were really nervous," admitted Refai, "because until about a week ago, we only had about 100 people or fewer signed up. Then this week, we had almost 100 more people sign up."
According to Key Club member Erin McCann, the turnout was "Probably about the same as last year. We had 140 people on the list, and about 102 we asked to donate. If their iron levels aren't high enough or the don't meet the height and weight requirements, they get sent back."
"Normally about 20-30 people are deferred," said Refai. In addition, many willing donors were discouraged from giving by their spring sports obligations. The general assumption among sport participants was that their coaches would not appreciate having their athletes' energy and strength compromised by blood loss.
According to Refai, "Each person who successfully donates can [potentially] save three lives with their plasma, white blood cells and red blood cells." By the end of the day, donors had given enough blood to save an estimate of 336 lives.
This year, two new machines enabled some donors to give twice the amount of blood. At these two stations, "they take two pints of blood and filter out the red blood cells, and return the plasma and white blood cells," said Refai. "They're hooked up on both arms. It's a lot harder to find people to give blood with these because you have to be bigger and have more iron, so it's mostly bigger guys."
The Blood Drive surpassed the expectations of most volunteers. It passed, to the relief of all, without much event or cause for alarm. On the day of the blood drive, Refai was optimistic: "At least in the fall, we didn't have a lot of people passing out-we didn't have those problems-it was a good blood drive, and hopefully today will be as good or better." By most standards, it was. The eagerness of most students to donate and save the lives of strangers was a pleasant surprise, and showed just how generous McMinnville High School can be.