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Thursday, 06 November 2008 |
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Staff photo/Angela Weaver
Ashley Makley, left, and Michael Enderud, both seniors at Memorial High School, donate blood Wednesday during a drive for the Red Cross.
By ANGELA WEAVER
Staff Writer
ST. MARYS — Memorial High School students donated a bit of their time and blood Wednesday morning in an annual seniors-only blood drive organized by different area groups, with one pint of a student’s blood saving an average of three lives.
Approximately 96 seniors signed up to donate in the blood drive, which took place from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the school’s auxiliary gym, and 87 usable pints of blood were obtained.
The blood drive is held once a year and is only open to seniors because of the small space and organizer Mike Jay said they would open the drive to other students and the community if they had the space to hold it.
“It’s a way to expose the students to blood donating. Our hope is that once they experience donating, the students will become regular donors,” Jay, a social studies teacher at Memorial, said. “Once they’ve gone through it and see that there’s no big deal to it.”
Representatives from the Red Cross drew blood from the students, who snacked on cookies provided by Michelle Clune’s culinary and nutrition classes and FCCLA after donating. Janet Nelson and the students in Tri-Star’s Med-Prep Program provided student nursing assistance.
Seniors were vital volunteers in the blood drive, with them not only donating, but 62 of them helped set up and unload the Bloodmobile in the morning, and 39 seniors helped tear down the stations and re-loading the truck in the afternoon.
School nurses Karen Imwalle and Sherrie Keighley also helped work the Bloodmobile, while Pam Tenyak took attendance and gave passes to the donors.
“A lot of the groups at school took part in it,” Jay said. “Everybody kind of had a part in it.”
Jay offered extra credit to his students who donated, which he said he does to encourage good citizenship.
He also said he passed out information and had speakers from Red Cross in his class before the drive.
“The speakers come in and tell them what the blood is used for and the benefits of donating,” Jay said.
Sara Wolfe, Brittney Lauth and Tasha Fowler said they hadn’t donated blood before and said they chose to donate as a way to save lives.
“We were scared at first,” Fowler said. “We were shaking.”
Fowler and Wolfe had remembered to eat breakfast earlier that morning, which was one of the donor suggestions the Red Cross had listed on the papers the students received.
The three said the best part of donating was the cookies and the finger prick was the worst.
“My finger still hurts,” Lauth said.
The girls also said they wanted to thank their hostesses, motioning to seniors Andrea Helmstetter, Jessica Highly and Brittany Roeckner, who are in Tri-Star’s Med-Prep Program and who were handing out food and bottled water to the students who had donated.
“We’re just helping out,” Helmstetter said, adding that she has donated blood in the past.
The three girls said they planned on donating at the drive later in the day.
“We’re making sure they’re doing OK,” Roeckner said. “Right now, we have to make sure they’re not fainting or looking pale.”
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 11 November 2008 )
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