The Wayne State College American Red Cross Club put together another blood drive in the Frey Conference Suite in the Kanter Student Center last Wednesday, April 15. 

Students, faculty and staff received emails last Tuesday about the blood drive. The email provided a link for donors to sign up using the blood donor app or by contacting WSC’s blood program leader, Cataleena Lortz. 

While donors who came in and donated received a “Life is Good” T-shirt, these same donors were contributing to an excellent cause to try and make somebody’s life good again. 

“Our goal of the blood drive is to make sure our blood banks around Nebraska and the United States, even worldwide, have blood,” Lortz said. “During a part of this semester, we were inside a severe blood shortage where our hospitals had to make a decision as to who was getting blood. We had major snowstorms up in the east coast, and therefore all of our blood banks around here did not have enough blood to go around.”  

This is not the only time the American Red Cross has shown up to WSC. In fact, they try to appear on campus eight times a school year. 

“If you donate, they will give you praises and also give you health screenings. Most will be tests for sickle cell anemia and other health problems,” Lortz said. 

Obviously, the goal at hand is to help surrounding blood banks stock up on healthy blood, however there are still some outside goals for the WSC American Red Cross Club. 

“Get more people to sign up and also to get people who actually sign up to actually show up…this past blood drive we had people who did show up, we also had walk-ins we actually accepted too.” Lortz said. 

Drawing blood and giving blood can be a bit of an overwhelming experience for a donor. Lortz helped put things into perspective to settle the nerves of some of the donors. 

“People that draw the blood at the blood drive, they are not other college students, they are actually professionals,” Lortz said. “If you are ineligible to donate blood, let’s say for example your iron is too low, or you had a disqualifying question, but you still sign in to our blood drive, you can still get your gift cards and stuff.” 

According to the WSC American Red Cross Club, the purpose of the club is to provide Red Cross services to the local community and the students of WSC, with club members delivering these services acting in accordance with the American Red Cross Code of Conduct.