Every year Arrowhead High School hosts an annual blood drive performed by the BloodCenter of Wisconsin somewhere between Friday, December first and December ninth. This year’s drive took place from 6:30 am to 2:30 pm in the North campus West Gym on December 8th.
The blood drive was open to students above the age of 16 as well as the public. Sign up was available during lunch hours in the cafeteria where students were asked to sign up for a certain time after school. Sign up was available from 12/1 to 12/8 at North campus and south campus. Students and staff members can either sign up during your lunch hour or students can sign up during students study halls and or after or before school.
Students that were 16 or older and under 18, had to have parental consent. In order to participate students, must have filled out a parental consent form and brought them to their appointment.
Students also had to provide a primary form of identification and proof of age to insure that they met the minimum age requirements for donation.
Acceptable forms of primary ID include the following: American Red Cross Donor ID, driver’s license, immigration and naturalization service card, credit card, state ID, employee ID, passport, student ID, or military ID.
According to Tamara Lindmair one of the student senate teachers says, “the total units that Arrowhead collected were sixty units; the number of donors were seventy five; and the total patients that were helped because of this were one hundred forty four.
Julia Payne, an Arrowhead High school junior, says, “I was not able to participate because I was busy with swim and my job but I will try next year.”
The blood drive also includes that students have to eat a good meal before coming and students also have to drink a lot of water before students and family’s appointments to ensure that students and families are okay to leave without feeling sick.
The blood draw normally takes from around eight to ten minutes and after that students and others need to stay an additional 50 min to ensure that students and families are good to go with drinking enough water and having some food.
Emily Lauber, an Arrowhead High school junior, says, “I was not able to participate in the blood drive, but I will think about it for next year.“
