The month of December is a big time of year for charitable efforts. Notable ways to give back during the holiday season include things such as donating to the Salvation Army, Toys for Tots and the State College Food Bank. On December 13th, State High’s Key Club conducted an American Red Cross blood drive. As you many of you may know, the American Red Cross is a humanitarian organization that is used for disaster relief, emergency assistance and education in the United States. Blood Drives are conducted all around the country and serve as a great way to give back to the community.

Students and staff throughout our school participated in donating blood, along with an option to donate platelets. One of the reasons people donate blood is because they understand that it can go as far as saving lives and it is a relatively easy process. “it’s important to host a blood drive at a school” said Ben Renfrew, a key club member at State High. “it is especially important to host a blood drive at State High because it serves as a major donor for Centre County.” All of the blood donated at the high school will remain in Centre County. In regard to the turnout, the blood drive was extremely successful. “ Our goal for the day was to get 64 pints of blood and we ended up getting 65.” said Renfrew. Students and staff need to meet the specific guidelines in order to ensure you’re physically healthy enough to donate. For starters, people must be at least 16 years old and weigh at least 110 pounds. Out of the 85 students that signed up, only 20 people were deferred. Renfrew said, “20 people were deferred due to either low weight, low iron count, fever, injury or recent tattoos.”

Planning for the Blood Drive was a lot of work for the Key Club as they had to find a date that worked best for the American Red Cross in State College. Key Club then needed to help prepare consent forms for students and help schedule appointments throughout the day in order to have an even flow of donations throughout the day. “Everything went perfectly planned,” said Renfrew, “except for a fire drill at the end of the day.”