COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Schools are letting out for break and students are lining up at College Station high School to donate blood.
One student health organization on campus, HOSA, says holding drives right before students leave for break is important to the community.
“Blood drives, especially here in this region, usually collect blood that stay in this region and a lot of the blood that Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center gets comes from high-schoolers, and so it’s very important that we get as many donations as we can from our school students so we can continue that supply of blood so that we don’t have a shortage in case of an emergency or anything like that,” said HOSA treasurer Arnav Banerjee.
This is the third blood drive College Station high School hosted this semester.
“Our goal mainly was to help fill up the blood center stores for the holidays. We learned that basically during the breaks from schools, the blood center blood stores go down quite a bit,” said HOSA advisor Elizabeth Poprik.
Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center receives 70-75% of its blood donations from high school students, and gives high school students different incentives to raise more blood donations yearly.
“Every year we basically try to grow our base and this year we have more than a hundred successful donations and we’re just trying to grow and grow and grow,” said Banerjee.
The high school will be holding another blood drive in May, before the students leave for summer break.
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