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By Chevelle Kenney
On Monday, November 21, 2022, the Homer-Center National Honors Society hosted a blood drive. The drive welcomed students and staff, along with members of the community to help donate to this enormous cause. This is the first blood drive that Homer-Center has hosted with the pandemic, and with tons of help from students, the drive was able to prove successful.
Student Volunteers were able to work the snack and drink table, escort donors after giving their donation, and bake cookies to earn hours towards their community service.
Service is one of the four pillars in NHS. In order to be a part of this group, students are required to meet a certain number of hours. By giving opportunities like these, students are able to give back to the community, and learn more about the stuff they missed during the pandemic.
Mrs. Courtney Scherf recently took over the NHS at Homer-Center, meaning that she was in charge of conducting and directing the drive. She had never taken on the task of hosting a blood drive, but she still had a pleasing first go.
"It was a really successful day. we had students, faculty, and community members coming through all day." She said. Scherf reported that 38 units of blood were donated, 10 patients were denied, and that the amount of blood they received can save up to 114 lives!
When asked how this blood drive differs from the ones hosted before the pandemic, she touched on how restrictions have been slowly lifted. Homer-Center has not been able to host a blood drive since 2019 due to these restrictions. With this, the amount of units they received was a great kick-start into the future of post-pandemic blood drives.
Mr. Kent, the Spanish teacher at Homer-Center donated blood for the first time since 2019 here. He's been donating blood since he was in high school, and has been doing because of the good deed.
Annaleigh Spade, a first time donor
Mr.Kent, a Homer-Center teacher who donated blood
"it's something that's easy to do in order to help somebody" he says. Rowan Burgess, Student at Homer-Center and a first time donor stated that They "knew people needed it" laughing that they "had spare."
Since blood drives have been scarce, most of high school upperclassmen, and college freshmen are likely to be first time donors. When these students turned 16, they were not given the opportunity to give blood. The student turn out was large for this fall's drive, and hopefully the turn out will be great this spring when the NHS hosts their next drive.
Nov. 22, 2022
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