Over the past few years Cathedral Preparatory School’s National Honors Society has saved countless lives with its annual blood drive. In past years NHS has held two blood drives during the school year, and this year they plan on having three. The first blood drive took place this past Wednesday, Sept. 28. All students had been encouraged to donate blood, and NHS members had also been encouraged to work the event. Some NHS members worked sign ups at lunch, while others admitted donors and distributed snacks.
Prep’s NHS is led by President Robert Quinn, but the Blood Drive was chaired by senior Mark Leone. His job was to assign NHS members to different shifts, sign donors up at lunch, and hang posters throughout Prep’s halls. He will “not personally chair another blood drive due to time constraints in the future,” but clearly is proud of his achievements this time around, as he feels the blood drive was “a huge success.” He would like to thank all the students and faculty who donated.
Mrs. Slaby, faculty advisor to NHS, provided some inside information on NHS’s reasonings and hopes. She stated that NHS made the jump to three drives in a simple effort to save more lives. Last year they collected 80 pints with two blood drives. This year they are doing three to make 100 pints a realistic goal. One pint of blood saves three lives, so this amounts to saving 300 lives. The drives are all spaced at least 56 days apart, so if someone desired to donate at all three, they could. It also gives student athletes that don’t want to donate during their season a chance to donate at another point during the year. Donors this year had to fill out a new form concerning the Zika virus that has become such a problem. This minor inconvenience likely brought the number of donors down slightly, but needless to say this was a very necessary precaution.
Those looking to donate should know that on rare occasions there are some negative side effects. Senior Luke Baloga reported that after donating he “felt drained… literally.” All blood loss jokes aside, Luke felt very tired and out of it after giving blood and claimed to have a pretty gnarly headache. Many times student athletes cannot go to practice or games after giving blood because is depletes their energy so much. However, most people feel fine after consuming a few of the complimentary snacks and sodas.
Thanks to the combination of students and faculty who donated their time and blood to this great cause. Keep your eyes and ears open for the next NHS Blood Drive at Cathedral Prep, as there is no feeling like the feeling of saving lives.