On Tuesday November 26th Upper St Clair high school had its annual blood drive. The blood drive occurs right before students go on fall break for Thanksgiving. It also takes place on the same day of the volleyball tournament.

The blood bank sets up inside the LGI for most of the day, the entire room is filled with blood transfusion equipment. Several nurses are also there to run the blood transfer and make sure the doner doesn’t pass out.

Members of the National Honor Society are there to volunteer and help out students that have already given blood. The volunteers have various jobs to do at the blood drive. Some of them watch students to make sure they don’t pass out, others provide students with snacks and water.

There is another set of volunteers that help check in students and sign them out. Some of these volunteers work directly with Mrs. Carlino to help make the blood drive goes smoothly.

Mrs. Carlino is in charge of the National Honor Society and is the coordinator for many events leading up to the blood drive. She is in charge of organizing a presentation that many students will see describing the benefits of donating. She also reviews applicants to donate and makes sure everyone is of age.

When asked about how she is involved with sign ups Mrs. Carlino said, “I’m the one that has to go into the system and register them and make sure they’re applicable.”

Mrs. Carlino mentioned that they had planned on doing the blood drive again later in the year on March 8th.

Katherine Ryan is a donor recruitment representative for the blood bank and came to Upper St Clair high school to raise awareness for the need of blood. She gave presentations for the seniors during english classes in hopes of persuading some students to donate blood.

Katherine described donations as not going so well, “Our donations are down by over 50% in the last ten years.”

High school donations are also very important as Katherine said that 25% of their donated blood comes from high schoolers. The blood drive this year was very successful, more people showed up to donate than the amount of students that had signed up.

Harry McCormick, a senior at Upper St Clair high school, described what it was like to donate blood, “I could feel the needle in my arm the whole time.”

Another blood drive will be held later in the year and the committee strongly believes it will be successful as this most recent one.