At MNHS,  community service runs through our veins. Maybe a tad literally, in this case. Mr. Ott, social studies teacher and sponsor of Volunteers In Action (VIA), organized and staffed the blood drive, amassing around 100 willing student donors. Among VIA volunteers were students from our school’s medical career readiness club, HOSA.

As explained by Mr.Ott, the students had many responsibilities, and managed a large portion of the Blood drive’s work, apart from its initial orchestration. These volunteers had varying jobs, ranging from check-in to assisting donors to their feet, then to the nearest snack table.

“It was cool to see all the Millard north students willing to donate their blood. I also like being able to help without actually having a needle in my arm,” said senior Maddie Ryan. When asked about improving the program, a few suggestions were made,“I checked people in and verified that they had their forms in order to give blood. A lot of people didn’t have a driver’s license and we needed that to verify their birthdays..If they don’t have a driver’s license there should be a way for them to print off something with that information prior to the blood drive,” said Ryan.

In addition to updating parts of the application process like printing off necessary information, more students may become involved with a more efficient system. There were a fair number of students signed up to give blood, but the process seemed a bit too slow to reach them all.    

“They asked you some questions about your health,.like have you been out of the country, then they laid you down and found your vein. They would check up on you and give you water and make sure you were okay. The actual giving blood took like 15 minutes,”said senior and blood donor Mia Schaeppi about the process.

There are other ways for someone to get involved in this specific event in the future. More volunteers are always needed,“There were plenty of students on the list signed up to give blood. We could get more blood by moving people through quicker so we could get more people in. There were lots of volunteers so if you don’t want to give blood there’s another way to get involved. This was my first time volunteering at the blood drive. At first I wasn’t going to sign up but my friend Kassey talked me into it,” Ryan said.

“Making it run [more] smoothly, I would say get enough volunteers to help run the process to have people not wait. This year was smaller because past years it was so crowded people waited really long.” Said Schaeppi, Otherwise, the process was relatively painless. In fact, Schaeppi looked practically ecstatic, munching from her pack of fruit snacks she received after being cleared to return to class.