Throughout the school day on March 11th, Broomfield High School hosted their Spring Blood Drive, allowing students and some citizens throughout the community to come in and donate their blood to people in need.

Typically, Broomfield hosts two blood drives throughout the year, this includes a fall and spring donation, which both exceeded their set goals. On the 11th, 42 units of blood were collected which was 11 units more than the goal set by Vitalant.

Vitalant, one of the oldest blood banks in the nation, comes into Eagle Gym and collects blood from willing donors. The blood that is donated offers many second chances to those in need.
The blood drive typically takes a year of planning, considering multiple schools host blood drives through Vitalant. Much work goes on behind the scenes. Gina Malecha, a coordinator of the blood drives, explained how in order to make the drive happen they must, “plan those dates, reserve our space, and get permission.”

On the day of the donation, many willing donors came into the gym and began their process. Donors were told to drink plenty of water and eat a full meal prior to getting their blood drawn. As well as this, they were requested to stay a full 15 minutes after to make sure their body had fully adjusted.

Donors began by checking in at the check-in table and, from there, they would then ask you to fill out a questionnaire which would ask you things such as places you’ve traveled, medications you have taken, etc.

Once Vitalant was ready for the donors, they would bring them over for a screening where they checked the donors’ height, weight, and blood pressure, as well as pricking a finger to check for a red blood cell count. If approved, then donors were allowed to donate blood.

Ian Graves, a junior, shared his experience donating blood stating, “It was overall very good. The people are very very nice and the process isn’t that complicated.”

However, there were some people with the full intent to donate blood who unfortunately were incapable. This could be from low iron, taking an aspirin the day of, or even being too short. This is why Broomfield must overbook those donating. According to Malecha, “There’s a whole bunch of disqualifiers so we always have to overbook to hit the number that we need.”

Broomfield is still always happy that they can fill every spot, and in this drive’s case overbook.

After the blood drive, the blood immediately goes into an emergency reserve. When blood is drawn, that specific unit can provide three blood transfusions; therefore, in theory, each donor would be saving three lives. Graves said, “I donated because I wanted to help out.”

This is the same for many people who donated. Broomfield’s blood drive and all their donors helped in a life-transforming process and likely saved multiple lives in the process. In addition to this, the outcome was such a success in the terms of units of blood collected as well as total participation.