By The Keystone Newspaper By Grant Rambo
On Wednesday, Feb. 5, the KU Community Outreach Center is hosting the Miller-Keystone Blood Drive at the McFarland Student Union in the Multi-Purpose Room 218. The time slot of the blood drive will be from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and appointments are required to participate.
In order to schedule an appointment for donation, call the number 1-800-223-6667, and be sure to mention its group code #1336. Alternatively, interested donors may scan the provided QR code as seen in the flyer sample image presented on this page.
All donors and participants must provide a valid ID that includes their first & last name as well as an eligible photo or signature.
The Miller-Keystone Blood Center is a member of the nationally reaching America’s Blood Centers. As a non-profit organization, Miller-Keystone Blood Center (MKBC) relies on the support of willing donors to provide blood for the organization to use in their efforts of saving lives.
MKBC extends its blood drives to schools and universities to garner a wide outreach from the youth willing to contribute to the blood drive’s efforts, and KU is one of its latest this year.
“We have about four blood drives a semester that we do. And last school year—this is a great stat—we saved 882 lives with 294 pints of blood,” Graduate Assistant for the Community Outreach Center, Lauren Szuter, said. “So, we’re hoping to do the same this year, if not obviously overachieve. We would love to hit that goal and do even better.”
The Community Outreach Center will be hosting additional blood drives on Wednesdays, March 5, April 2 and May 7.
To increase the number of donors for the MKBC, the Community Outreach Center is spreading the word about “Blood Donor Madness.”
In order to participate in the Blood Donor Madness event, all participants must donate to an on-campus blood drive or at one of the MKBC Lehigh Valley blood centers. The donors must do this between Monday, Jan. 13 and Friday, April 4 of this year. The blood centers where donors can help supply are located in Bethlehem, Cedar Crest, Easton, and Hamilton Street.
Incentives for those interested in Blood Donor Madness include a $1,000 award to their college scholarship fund, which can be earned if KU collects donations from 4% of its total student population. If KU wins, it will be awarded $10,000 to its scholarship fund.
Other incentives are included as well. Randomly selected student and faculty donors can be eligible to win prizes such as Amazon gift cards, Airpods, and more. If a participant donates, and they also bring a first-time donor to the event as well, then both may receive a $25 e-gift card.
“I always say in any situation, just think about if it was someone you loved or someone you cared about and they really needed blood, they really needed a blood transfusion, they really needed the help in that moment, you would want it to be just readily available you wouldn’t want to have to wait,” Szuter said. “Maybe you need the blood? So always just always put yourself in other people’s shoes.”