On Friday, Sept. 12, Keene State had its annual blood drive in partnership with the American Red Cross and Phi Sigma Sigma (Phi Sig), one of Keene State’s sororities.
The drive was held in the Mabel Brown Room, which was packed with equipment for the event from the Red Cross. Attendees checked in with members of Phi Sig and were sent to a waiting room. Once their name was called, they were asked to check in with an employee of the Red Cross, then they were able to transition to another area of the room to donate their blood.
Jessica Gagne Cloutier, the director of student involvement at Keene State and liaison for the American Red Cross, spoke about the importance of the drive on campus.
“I appreciate having drives on campus to provide students the opportunity to donate, and our faculty and staff opportunities to donate here on campus,” said Gagne Cloutier. “It’s certainly keeping our blood supply healthy in our area and region [and] helps everybody, because those donations save lives.”
Two people who were at the blood drive were student Abby Mather and senior Bee Wilkinson.
“I think giving blood is the baseline of what so many of us can do,” said Mather. “I don’t have a lot of money to donate to things, but I can give blood.”
“My grandfather gave blood for most of his adult life,” said Wilkinson. “Then when he passed my dad and I started going together. But then my dad got kidney cancer so he had to stop, so now it’s just me rocking with it. So I try to give as much as possible.”
Along with the various attendees and members of the Red Cross, senior Hope Lownds and junior Grace Neff of Phi Sig were volunteering for registration and check-in.
“It’s typically something that we do every semester,” said Lownds. “We try to sponsor at least one blood drive. We think that it’s really in line with our service values. We try to do a lot of service events if we can. So this is a great way for us to get involved on campus, especially during recruitment season, to get the word around that we’re recruiting.”
“We do a lot of service events, but we are also coming up on our recruitment seasons, so we go around to anyone who’s interested, and we try to give any information about Greek Life,” said Neff.
Jennifer Costa, the regional communications director of the American Red Cross of Northern New England, spoke about the importance of blood donations.
“You can be a hero for a patient in need by simply rolling up your sleeve,” Costa said. “You can be the reason a child gets to celebrate another birthday — or a father gets to walk his daughter down the aisle on her wedding day.”
Costa elaborated on the importance of donating blood.
“Every two seconds, someone in the U.S. needs blood. These could be burn victims, heart surgery, trauma or organ transplant patients. The recipients could be new moms or babies who need blood during childbirth — or those receiving treatment for leukemia, cancer or sickle cell disease. Donating blood is one of the simplest things a person can do to help save a patient’s life.”
Noelle Hisgen can be reached at
nhisgen@kscequinox.com
