Friday the 7 of December North hosted the annual blood drive. The event took place from 8:30 in the morning to 2:30 in the afternoon. The students who were able to sign up for donating blood had to talk to Timothy Wells or  Kim Phillips that with the help from Natasha Iversen and Ali Reigh were able to organize the blood drive. Also, the community blood center helped them to have everything ready to go like they provided the vans and buses they had for the blood drive and they also brought the medical material needed. Also, the community blood center is not the only one helping, we also have little businesses and organizations providing food and drink for the donors after the donation.

For the North blood drive, the students had to go and look for any leadership student or teacher in order to sign you in for the blood drive. After that, you have to go to the community blood center to answer a questionnaire asking if you are healthy or not, or if you have taken ibuprofen or something that could keep you from donating. Once you are all set with the questioner, you wait until somebody from the blood center staff takes you from the community blood center to the van also called Bloodmobile were you are going to realize your donation. But before donating they test you on your iron levels and they also take your fingerprint and your blood pressure. After that,  you are all ready to go!

“Afterwards you get a bunch of free food and beverages and that’s pretty cool,” Reigh said.  

Also, Alli Reigh and Natasha Iversen have been donors before.

“The first time I donated, I was nervous on the inside but looking pretty calmed in the outside”, Alli said. “Most of the people that volunteer for the blood drive are nervous because they don’t know what is going to happen, or if they are going to be able to donate, once you realize you are able to, it’s not a big deal,” said Reigh and Iversen.

Natasha by the other hand was also nervous because no one of her family was able to donate ever, but luckily for her, she was able to and now is the third time she is donating.

Before the blood drive on Friday they had 150 students signed in approximately which was the goal for this blood drive, however, there were other students who weren’t able to sign up for the blood drive but they were able to donate.

“We have some walk in from students that didn’t know or remember that they could sign up, and they are able to donate blood anyways,” Alli said. “We have had some students that were worried about missing class due to the blood drive but we always tell and encourage them to come and donate because they could be saving lives with their donation.” Natasha and Alli said.

People like Liana Yang who donated for the first time on Friday think that if you can donate you should donate. “I think that if I’m able to donate I have to donate because it could save lives”. Liana Yang said.  

Also, other people are veterans when we talk about donating blood, like Corinne Ingeman who has been donating since she arrived at north.

“My son was born premature and he needed blood, so since then I’ve been donating blood for people who need it as my son needed it”, Mrs. Ingeman said.

Miranda Leggett also donated on Friday for the second time. “I was so excited the first time I donated blood because all my family does it and we all schedule our own times to do it so when I was able to donate blood I was so excited for it, Miranda Leggett said.

Thanks to the hard work our leadership students and blood drive organizes do, they were able to sign in over than 160 people and a grand total of 122 donations which is over the goal they had this year. Due to that,  high school blood drives are the most popular and the ones that provide more donated blood. We encourage you to go and donate blood whenever you can, it doesn’t have to be at north, you can go to the community blood center here in Oshkosh and be able to donate at anytime you want to, because it doesn’t matter where you donate because the blood will be used for the same thing either you are donating at North or at the community blood center.