On April 22, the people of Fair Grove held a community wide blood drive to help contribute potentially life saving blood to our local hospitals.
The blood drive was set up and run by Fair Grove’s Future Business Leaders of America (F.B.L.A.) and Distributive Education Clubs of America (D.E.C.A.), in a partnership with a Community Blood Center of the Ozarks (C.B.C.O.). The C.B.C.O. is the group who actively collects blood and does all the medical work necessary to make the event successful.
When a person donates blood, that blood can be used to save up to three people’s lives. The blood is split into red blood cells, platelets, and white blood cells, and are used as needed by the hospital’s discretion. FBLA and DECA set up a goal to get 200 people to sign up and donate, with the hopes that they would be able to get 150 units of blood for the hospital.
According to Casey Overstreet, one of two Fair Grove FBLA and DECA sponsors, the process of giving blood was broken up into four simple steps. First is registration, during this time a C.B.C.O. worker will give you a questionnaire and ensure you are eligible for donation. Second is the health and history portion, where they go through a checklist and run some tests to make sure you are eligible to donate blood. Third is the actual donation of blood, and then fourth is recovery and snacktime. Replenishing your blood sugar and vital nutrients after donating blood is important to a swift recovery.
Senior and F.B.L.A. officer Leila Huff helped work on preparing and running the blood drive. Huff stated, “We have been planning and partnering with C.B.C.O. on this project since September. We spent hours outside of school, planning a community lunch, coming in on Mondays, creating content to spread the word on social media, and taking flyers to local businesses and community.”
There were eleven sponsors who helped contribute to prizes and snacks for the people who donated blood to enjoy. Every person who donated was automatically entered into a raffle. The raffle prizes were 25 Pineapple Whip gift cards, one set of two tickets to prom for a student to win, and a 65 inch smart TV. On top of being entered into the raffle for those items, every one who donated received a C.B.C.O. T-shirt, a coupon for a free pint of Culvers custard, and an Ozarks Adventure pass.
According to Overstreet, this blood drive exceeded their expectation of 150 pints being donated, and instead was able to raise a total of 188 pints of blood, making it a huge success.
