Looking to kick the semester off right by doing something good for the community? Volunteer to donate blood during the first of four university-wide blood drives to be held this academic year.
Whitney Curtis
In the past three years, the university community has donated 5,215 productive units of blood to the region’s blood supply.
The first blood drive will take place Tuesday, Sept. 14, at eight different locations on the Danforth, Medical and West campuses.
All students, staff and faculty members are encouraged to participate in this effort to replenish the St. Louis region’s blood supply.
The university-wide blood drives are proving popular and quite successful. In the three previous years, 5,215 productive units of blood were collected, helping to save an estimated 15,645 lives, says Stephanie Kurtzman, director of WUSTL’s Community Service Office and associate director of the Richard A. Gephardt Institute for Public Service.
“The response of the university community has been overwhelming,” Kurtzman says. “But the need for blood is still great. According to the American Red Cross, every two seconds someone in America needs blood.”
To donate, sign up on online at communityservice.wustl.edu/bd. There, you also can view a complete schedule with times and locations and sign up to be a volunteer at the drive.
The Community Service Office, in collaboration with the American Red Cross and Mississippi Valley Regional Blood Center, is sponsoring the drives. Drives are funded in part by Student Union and Congress of the South 40.
Future blood drives this academic year are scheduled for Nov. 10; Feb. 1, 2011; and March 30, 2011.