Thursday, October 23, 2008

BloodSource at Sac State


The largest number of Sac State students to date, showed up to participate in the "Causeway Classic Blood Drive" this past Monday and Tuesday.

For several years now, Sacramento State has joined with BloodSource in the annual blood drive which this year also serves as a competition against its biggest rival UC Davis.

BloodSource is a non-profit organization that has been committed to organizing blood drives since 1948 and today it is the source of blood used by over 40 hospitals in 25 Northern and Central California counties. BloodSource have two locations here in Sacramento and over a dozen more outside the Sacramento area.

Half an hour before the end of the event of Tuesday the total amount of blood donors was 845 and the line was still out the door. In previous years, Sacramento State was only able to collect a little over 100 pints of blood each day. The goal this year was to collect 275 pints of blood each day and fortunately for Sac State they were able to accumulate over 400 pints of blood per day.

Participants received tickets to an imax showing of "Wild Ocean 3D" and a free t-shirt for donating a pint of blood.

Ashely from BloodSource recommended that participants eat a lot of food with iron and be well hydrated before donating blood because the biggest reason why people are disqualified for donating blood is low iron.

Student involvement has been a major factor in the success of this year's blood drive. Tim Gilmore, representative of BloodSource says that they have had a lot of help from student organizations.

"PR organizations, student fraternities, the Student Sikh society has been coming out, so we've had a lot of participation from both campus life and from BloodSource," Gilmore said.

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