By Jack Thalmann, V Form

Making a Change, Pint by Pint with a Blood Drive

Approximately every two seconds in the United States, someone needs a blood transfusion, meaning that more than 36,000 donated pints of red blood cells are needed every day. This statistic surprised me last year when I was working on an assignment for Do The Right Thing, the sophomore core Saturday program. We had been assigned to create a mock advertisement about an organization that we believed was important. I chose to research blood drives, incorporating facts that I researched into an advertisement that I hoped would catch a viewer’s attention. The mere daily amount of blood needed was enough to shock me, because a person is only allowed to donate blood every two months. Therefore, to reach the amount needed daily amount, 13,140,000 donated pints are required every year. This comes out to be the equivalent of 2,190,000 citizens of the United States donating blood every time they are eligible: 6 times a year. (more…)