To save lives, the Red Cross is running a blood drive at the high school on March 3, and is asking anyone willing to give the gift of life to donate.
According to blood donor ambassador Jen Cassidy, each donation saves the lives of three people, and the reason these people need the blood can be because of many reasons.
“If you have a car accident, most people need access to blood immediately,” Cassidy said. “So having a pool of blood available…helps save lives by the physicians just ordering the blood, and they’re able to provide it right away.”
According to the Red Cross, every two seconds, someone in the United States needs blood, and 29,000 units of red blood cells are needed daily. One unit is about a pint.
According to donor collection assistant Mary Spitz, red blood cells last between 35-42 days, but the other components are different.
“It’s important to [donate blood] because blood can’t be frozen, so it expires,” Spitz said. “Plasma can be frozen, platelets only last five days.”
Not only do high school blood drives provide actual blood, but they are also an opportunity to give young people experience with donating blood.
“It’s not necessarily high schools,” wellness teacher Karin Clark said. “By getting them to start early, we can hopefully potentially get them to have a lifelong donation process.”
According to Cassidy, many people don’t want to donate blood because they think it hurts. “A lot of people think that it hurts, and it’s just one of those things where you have to try it once and see if it does or not,” Cassidy said.