Pints for Half-Pints

I recently gave blood at Children’s Hospital and while I was there I saw a school bus that had been repurposed into a mobile blood drive. They call it the Bloodmobile, and it gave me the idea to see if it could come to Newman.

I talked with the ‘manager’ of the Bloodmobile, Cindy, and she is very open to the idea and gave the details to talk to the administration at school.

Over the course of a 6-hour school day, 36 people would be able to donate a pint of blood each. Usually, pints are used on a 1:1 ratio with one pint per patient however because Children’s uses their donations ‘in-house’ each child only needs half a pint of blood. This means that the donations will be able to help twice as many patients and will be used locally.

I talked to the headmaster at Newman, Mr. Schafer and he is excited but thinks that, because of covid, it will be difficult to do it this semester. He said to bring it up to the Dean of Students, Mr. Pool, who agrees that it would be better to schedule it for the beginning of 2022.

I believe I will easily get 36 students to volunteer however staff and faculty are welcome to donate as well. Further, if there is space, any parents or other community members will be invited to join as well.