Winston Churchill top school for local blood donations
STUDENTS LEARN THE IMPORTANCE OF GIVING BLOOD
It’s in Winston Churchill High School students to give. And that’s exactly what they did, earning the school an award from Canadian Blood Services for donating the most units of blood locally in the 2016-17 Give Life High School Challenge.
The annual challenge engages schools in a friendly competition to recruit the most new donors and make the most blood donations. Last school year, a total of 239 high schools across Canada participated in the challenge, resulting in more than10,000 donations and 1,200 new donors.
WCHS won the challenge for the Lethbridge region, collecting 90 units of blood. Many people aren’t aware that blood donors as young as age 17 can be accepted.
“Students can donate starting at 17 years old, so having the exposure and hopefully making them lifelong donors is really important,” said Belinda Tomiyama, CBS territory manager. One of the special components of the program is it works through peer-on-peer recruitment.
“So we actually have students from the school who come to a workshop and learn about the importance of blood donation and then come back into their schools and talk to their peers about donating,” said Tomiyama. “So it’s peer-on-peer recruitment and being asked, because most people say they don’t donate blood because they’ve never been asked to before.”
The school received the award during an assembly on Thursday. Students also heard the story of James Crabb, a Winston Churchill alumnus, who shared how blood donors played an important role in saving the lives of his wife and baby boy.
“My wife had complications and we almost lost her if she wouldn’t have had the blood transfusion. She had to have the blood transfusion in order to have surgery because her platelet levels were so low,” said Crabb. “And then my son was born at 26 weeks, 14 weeks premature and he was only one pound, three ounces.
“So during his 136-day stay in the NICU at Foothills in Calgary he needed five blood transfusions.”
Crabb said it’s inspiring to see high school kids stepping up to donate blood and help families such as his. He said he wasn’t aware of the need for blood when he was in high school.
“It’s kind of full circle for me to come back here and show my support for them for winning the challenge and as well getting the word out to go donate blood,” he said. “The fact that young kids are getting involved and donating blood, it just shows something to look forward with our future. Hopefully we won’t keep having these shortages for blood donors and it will just become second nature for the kids that are growing up.”
Crabb hopes the assembly will generate more conversations at home about how donating blood saves lives.
“It touches close to home for everybody, but until you know about it, you’re not aware of it.”
Across the country there is a heightened need for O-negative blood.
“Usually we like to have about five to eight days of O-negative blood in our inventory. Right now we only have two, so we’re asking Canadians across the country that are O-negative to come forward and donate,” said Tomiyama. “Here at the Lethbridge clinic for the month of November, we still have over 780 open appointments that we need to fill to keep up with patient demand.”
To book an appointment, locate a clinic, or check your eligibility, visit blood.ca.