Oxford Academy Red Cross held its first blood drive of the year in the gym on Nov. 5, donating 31 units of blood to the American Red Cross for patients with cancer or sickle cell disease.
Amassing around 34 student donors before the blood drive, and allowing walk-ins, they were required to be at least 16 years old to donate with parental permission, or older to donate without.
Staff were also encouraged to come donate during the walk-in period. Service coordinators junior Daniel Georges and senior Leah Lee used their Blood Drive Ambassador accounts to register student volunteers’ appointments.
These donors either donated one (“whole blood”) or two units of blood (“power red”) and were also rewarded with Wingstop, Shake Shack gift cards, service hours, a t-shirt, and breakfast. Additionally, five donors were put into a raffle for Knott’s Berry Farm tickets.
“I decided to give blood today because I saw that it was for a good cause, and I’ve been wanting to donate before, so I just took this opportunity,” junior Jocelyn Elizarraras said.
The blood drive had been led up by weeks of planning, and the Red Cross board was satisfied with the event’s impact and purpose.
“A lot of work goes into planning blood drives. Leah (Lee) and I consistently communicate with not only our Red Cross President and Vice President, but also the strategic business planning manager from Orange County Red Cross,” Georges said. “We have to consider what incentives to provide donors and volunteers with, organize sign in and sign out sheets, communicate with the attendance office, and more. It can be a lengthy but also very rewarding process.”
With the event yielding many donations for patients, President Tiffany Le witnessed the impact and importance of the blood drive this school year.
“Especially with all these natural disasters happening recently, it’s really important that the students do their part to kind of give blood — because you have blood, so why can’t you donate, you know?” she said.
During the blood drive, student volunteers engaged in three shifts: assisting the Red Cross board with registration and call slips, checking in donors, and keeping the gym area clean and organized.
“I’ve just been coming to volunteer at Red Cross every year when they do the blood drip. I just really like helping out the staff,” junior Sam Iniguez said.
The event wasn’t without hiccups though, as the Red Cross board dealt with some scheduling conflicts, having to push back early donors to accommodate everyone, but the team persisted.
Learning from this experience, Red Cross’ next and final blood drive of the year is slated for March 10. Red Cross board is satisfied with their support for their community.
“It felt unreal to watch our blood drive come to life, especially after having been planning it for so long and finally getting to see how everything would actually work,” Georges said. “I’m so glad that we exceeded our goal of over 40 units of blood donated, especially because of all the people I know it will help and seeing how much our Oxford community genuinely cares about helping others.”
