At Arrowhead Union High School, there was a blood drive on April 19th, 2024. It was from 6:30am to 2:30pm at the North Campus West gym. It was organized and held by Arrowhead’s Student Senate.
Senior Elena Evans says, “I was one of the students helping in the blood drive this year and it went well.”
When students donated blood, they were entered into a raffle to win a gift card. Gift cards are only given to students whose names are picked from the raffle. Some students received $25 for Falbo’s Pizza, Starbucks, and Amazon.
Students could sign up for the blood drive during the fifth or sixth hour Monday the 15th through Thursday the 18th. There were students who set up a table during those two hours with sheets of information about the blood drive as well as other papers to fill out.
The time slot for each individual who was giving blood was 30 minutes; however, some students may have stayed longer due to feeling dizzy.
Senior Grace Hamilton said, “I had to stay for 45 minutes because I kept feeling light headed.”
Before a person can donate blood they have to meet the requirements. Donors have to be at least 16 years old, in healthy condition (no heart defects, history is passing out or sizers) and at least 110 pounds. If a person has low iron, takes certain medications, is sick, or traveled outside of the United States in the past three years you can be deferred from giving blood.
Before the blood drive, students donating were told to drink plenty of water, eat healthy iron rich foods, be sure to have a good breakfast and get plenty of sleep the night before.
Senior Hamilton said, “Overall though donating blood was not bad.”
