Walking into Labor Hall on the campus of Park University on April 10 you would see three hospital beds with people ready to give blood for the American Red Cross and the Park pre-health club. When you walk in to give blood you first need to sign in, then they check your health history, and finally you start your blood donation. Once you finish donating the Red Cross staff encourages you to eat a snack and to drink some fluids to help your body recover afterward.

These two groups partner every semester to make the blood drive available to students, faculty, and the Parkville community so that the blood collected can help someone in need.

“My dad is actually on blood thinners so he needs blood, that’s why I donate,” said senior biology student Brooklyn Campbell. Donations like hers help many people, like her father, get the transfusions they need in order to continue living long and healthy lives. Every semester the blood drive gets between 45 and 50 volunteers to donate blood at Park.

Setting up this event is no easy feat; it takes a lot of organization and planning by both groups to accomplish a blood drive. According to James Berry a senior chemistry student, “the Red Cross sets up a lot of this stuff for us. What we usually do is we get the food, we get tables, and we kind of organize when we are going to have it. We make sure we have Labor Hall reserved, but for the most part the Red Cross does a great job of getting things set up for us.”

One of the new things the pre-health club tried this semester was to put up posters around downtown Parkville, Mo., to help get the word out about the blood drive to the community. The next blood drive is going to be in the fall of 2018 so be on the lookout for posters with more information next semester.