Students had the opportunity to shake the stereotype of being selfish and apathetic last week at the blood drive on campus, but failed to do so by only donating 278 pints of blood.
The initial goal of the three-day blood drive was to get 360 pints of life-saving blood, but students did not heed the call and the goal was missed by 80 pints.
Although Wendy Clark, a supervisor at the blood drive, said the event was a success, missing their goal by nearly 25 percent has to be disappointing.
But the Red Cross, Inter-Club Council and everyone involved did a great job of putting the blood drive together by making it as easy as possible for students to donate. Unfortunately the student body did not deliver.
Donating blood is so easy and does so much for people in need. According to the American Red Cross’ Web site, someone in the U.S. needs blood every two seconds for deadly diseases such as cancer and sickle cell anemia.
All students need to do to save a life is answer a couple of simple questions, have their blood checked to make sure they are fit to donate, get their blood drawn and then wait in a room where they get free food and drinks. The entire process takes about 45 minutes and saves lives.
And if donating blood was not easy enough, the American Red Cross has made it even easier by allowing people to make appointments to donate blood online at www.givelife.org.
But obviously the donating process is not easy enough for students because only 278 pints of blood were raised over the three days that the American Red Cross was here.
One way to get more blood donated at the next blood drive on campus, which will be in the spring, is to advertise it more. Yes, it was on the Web site’ but the majority of the students only visit the Web site to add classes during the begining and ending of a semester.
Students for the most part are socially conscience and most would be more than willing to give 45 minutes out of their lives to help add years of life to another if they knew more about the process and how much there blood is needed.