Students, parents, come together to make Halifax’s largest blood donation – Halifax | 24CA News
A gaggle of graduating highschool college students and their dad and mom marked the tip of the college yr by doing their half in offering Canadian Blood Services with Halifax’s largest group blood donation on Saturday.
The college students from Halifax West High School, calling themselves the “333 lifesavers,” mentioned recurrently donating blood collectively shall be a manner for them to remain in contact following highschool whereas additionally giving again to their group.
The day kicked off with the group gathering for a wholesome breakfast earlier than the households and mates had been delivered to the donor centre on the Canadian Blood Service LifeBus.
Jocelyn Melanson, one of many dad and mom who participated within the day’s actions, mentioned the occasions had been organized by shut buddy, Patti Martin.
“She’s been notorious through all of the kids’ lives for planning some great adventures together for all of the kids and parents to spend time,” she mentioned. “And we know that there’s a big need for blood donations so it’s something that she combined the two ideas together and came up with this.”
Organizer Patti Martin poses with a couple of of the scholars and oldsters earlier than heading out to make their donations.
Melanson mentioned there shall be 70 members all through the complete course of, with about 56 donating on Saturday.
“It’s a way for us to get together and continue to get together in the years to come as they (the students) go on their separate journeys,” she mentioned. “Gathering with a cause is what I like to call it.”
Melanson mentioned with subsequent week being National Blood Donor Week, which additionally runs parallel with World Blood Donor Day on June 14, she’s encouraging extra teams of households or mates to return out and donate.
A bus offered by the Canadian Blood Services transported the scholars and oldsters to their Halifax location.
Jesse Mcginn, one other graduating scholar, mentioned he’d prefer to see this turn out to be a practice for future graduating courses.
“We’re all going on after graduating to different things, some of us are going to the same university, some of us are doing other things, so it’s great to come together and do things like this before grade 12 is over,” he mentioned, including that it wasn’t the primary time donating blood for a lot of college students.
Krysta Hanakowski, Halifax’s group improvement supervisor with the Canadian Blood Services, mentioned the 333 lifesavers supplied their first blood donation in March when a bunch of about 16 participated. She mentioned curiosity continued to develop as they started planning their second donation.
“Now we’re at a group of almost 65 people coming up to donate which is a huge amount of blood that we need to collect today,” she mentioned, noting that the massive group contribution is a “great example” of the group’s “Shine A Light” marketing campaign, which is meant to attract consideration to a present want for brand spanking new donors.
A gaggle of graduating college students had been all smiles after being handled to some free snacks after finishing their blood donation.
Hanakowski mentioned she hopes the group’s notable effort on Saturday will energize others to step up and provides, because the Halifax location nonetheless has 400 appointments remaining to be stuffed between June and September.
“Having a group of teenagers now that already know the process of donating … this is the kind of thing that we need to help improve our blood donor levels and turn things around.”
— With information from Vanessa Wright
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