Blood Donors Give and Receive

Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) and Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA) hosted the spring blood drive on April 26, 2023.

This blood drive featured a lot of extra incentives to join and donate blood. Cayse Overstreet, the FBLA and DECA Advisor, said, “Our numbers are always much higher when we offer more incentives, especially for first-time donors. If we reached our goal we would win the CBCO Small School Throwdown Showdown for three years in a row as well as increase our scholarship money for grads. While all of that is great, the most important reason is to save more lives!” 

One guaranteed reward for all donors was a voucher that could be redeemed for two free tickets to one of the following: Beyond the Lens in Branson, MO, Discovery Center in Springfield, MO, or the Scott Family Amazeum in Bentonville, AR. Some of the prizes from the gift card drawings, according to Overstreet, includes: Kad-E-Korner, Starbucks, free summer session at Elevation Studio, $50 Visa Cards, principals’ parking spots (HS only), pie a teacher/student (HS only).

Overstreet elaborated, “Incentive prizes are for those who sign up and attempt to donate. If they make it to the bed, but are unable to give for any reason, we still honor them with the gift card. If they do not show up or are turned away at the table, the gift cards will be put back in the drawing.”

An additional incentive was a face pieing event, as Overstreet described, “It was an end-of-the-year assembly where donors who participated in the blood drive would get to make a pie from the pie bar (fill with some yucky items) and then throw it in the face of a teacher or student of their choice. Teachers could only throw at students and vice versa.” This incentive required 90 donors to give blood, but we did not meet the incentive, so the assembly will not take place.

There wasn’t only effort put into the prizes for donors, but work went into comforting donors as well. Karla Sabata (10) was a volunteer during the spring blood drive, “My role was to keep donors company while they were giving blood and give them whatever they needed, such as a drink, food or even  conversation so time would go faster to them,” Sabata explained. Sabata thinks the blood drive hosted at school is important due to its accessibility. She shared, “It’s a way that young people can give blood very practically. Without having to drive or having to go anywhere they can still help the community and it shows little kids that at some point they can be the donors too.”

Fair Grove did in fact win the CBCO Small School Throwdown Showdown for the third year in a row because of the generosity of teachers, students, and members of the Fair Grove community.