Attendance had been down for past years, but every spot was filled for this year.

The HOSA blood drive collected blood from all the eligible donors out of the 130 students that signed up. The gym was full of kids waiting in line to have their blood drawn.

The blood drive was held in the small gym with StuCo helping HOSA organize the event. The students would go to the front desk and sign in, wait in line to fill out a digital form, wait in line again to give blood, give blood, and then wait for an allotted amount of time to regain their strength with a quick snack.

Senior Andrew Cox were surprised by the amount of blood that the donation required as well as the longer wait times.

“[The blood drive] takes about a pint of blood,” Cox said, “I think that’s like one tenth of the blood in your body. [The procedure] is pretty simple: they clean off your arm and they get this little [tool] – it’s kind of like a needle but not really – and they find where your veins are and swab it. Before that, they pressurize it and give you a ball to squeeze. After they’ve done that, they put the needle in and start to draw out the blood. It took me about a hour to go through the whole thing.”

There were several StuCo volunteers working during the blood drive including junior Hannah Nauman and sophomore Emma Mize by signing people in and passing out snacks to the recent donors.

“This year we got every spot filled,” Nauman said, “it’s a lot better than last year.”

With every spot filled the blood drive needs StuCo to work their hardest and help HOSA out as much as possible.

“We’re on duty for two hours per shift,” sophomore Emma Mize said, “The people who come to take the blood organize a lot of it, like all the chairs and everything and then we come before and set up the sign in tables and snack tables.”

When the day is done, HOSA packs up all their equipment,  it all into their trucks and leaves the school to deliver the blood. With many generous donations from the students, the proceeds will got to Mississippi Valley regional blood center.

HOSA is a student led organization that helps student properly prepare for careers in health care. HOSA organizes competitions and health related events, such as the blood drive.

FHC hosted the Mississippi Valley Regional Blood Center, a non-profit organization, to draw blood from students. They are the proud provider of blood to 86 hospitals in Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin. They also provide additional units to hospitals across the country in a national resource sharing program.

The blood center relies on the community to help them receive enough blood and they do this with several community outreach programs. Their blood drives are free of charge and can be hosted in churches, businesses, schools, and other civic organizations throughout the region.