Colonia High School hosted its first blood drive of the 2014-2015 school year on November 21st.
The blood drive is really the senior class blood drive, or at least sponsored by the senior class. Usually run by former teacher, Mrs. Sheehan, this year the blood drive was run by science teacher Mrs. Hernandez with the help of art teacher, Ms. Joyce. Senior, Eriny Tawfik, was the student most in charge of the blood drive and certainly made this year’s blood drive run smoothly and effectively.
The Requirements
The first thing people should know before signing up for donating blood, is that donors have to be at least 16 years old and that is with a parent consent form. However, at 17 years old one can donate without parent consent. With that being said the next requirements has to do with weight. In order to donate blood, the donor must weigh a minimum of 120 pounds. In addition, donors could not have gotten a tattoo in the past year or have traveled outside the United States in the past year to a place where malaria may be contagious. Furthermore, to be a blood donor a person cannot have sore throat or fever, they cannot have had dental work in the past 72 hours and/or could not have had a routine dental teeth cleaning or fillings within 72 hours.
After donating blood Sam Czapik receives juice and some treats.
As long as a person meets the requirements, then all one needs is their social security number and they can be a blood donor. Another donation one may be able to make is Alyx. This blood donation collects double the amount of red blood cells compared to a regular whole blood donation. The requirements for this donation are slightly different. Men have to be at least 5’1” and weigh 130 pounds and women have to be at least 5’5” and weigh at least 150 pounds. At Colonia High School’s recent blood drive 10 students/teachers donated with Alyx.
The Day of the Drive
This year Colonia High School provided donors with a breakfast table. Breakfast items included: bagels with your choice of three toppings (cream chesses,butter, or peanut butter), granola bars and muffins. Of course water was provided as well. After any student or faculty donated they had a variety of options of sweets and treats and juices all donated by Colonia High School students. This first blood drive of the year had a total of 83 student donors, and three teacher donors totaling to 106 pints of blood.Overall, the first blood drive of the 2014-2015 school year was quite the success the students were hoping for.
