Montachusett Tech seniors plan blood drive
Donate at school May 14
FITCHBURG » After recognizing an urgent need in their community, two Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical School students were inspired to organize a blood drive at their school on May 14.
Sophia Howard, 17, of Barre, and Sterling resident Reilly Laitala, 18, both health occupations students and members of the National Honor Society, are partnering with Massachusetts General Hospital Blood Donor Center to organize the drive.
Sophia and Reilly have been working a co-op at Heywood Hospital in Gardner as medical assistants since October. They said that was where they “noted the impact of the nationwide blood shortage.”
“It is important for the both of us to be doing this community outreach event because we have seen firsthand just how dire the need for blood is at this moment,” Sophia said.
The dedicated duo said the reaction from the school and greater community “has been extremely positive.” Their goal was to get 60 people scheduled; as of press time they have well over that.
“We would not have been able to organize this event without the help of Mr. Browne and the staff members at Mass General,” the young women said of their school principal and the organization. “There has also been a lot of positive feedback from the community as well. Many people were wanting to donate and to help fight the shortage and have expressed the fact that there were limited drives occurring and are happy to see one scheduled.”
According to Mass General, due to the COVID-19 pandemic many of the blood drives scheduled throughout not only Massachusetts, but the entire United States, were canceled. However the need for blood was still there.
As a result, the supply of blood at hospitals and blood banks around the country has been greatly depleted. Additionally, many places around the country are experiencing a severe staffing shortage. This has made it so that even though the need for drives is there, people are unable to find help, and thus cannot run them.
“Throughout the last year, there has been a severe national blood shortage,” said Kim Cronin, MGH Blood Donor Center Donor Service Manager. “Although people are beginning to get back to normal work and activities, the blood supply is a bit slow to recover. Hosting community blood drives, like the one at Monty
the amount of available blood for the community. Every two seconds someone needs blood, and the only source is a healthy, generous human being. Having the high school students participating is wonderful. They are the future of the blood program.”
The young women said that when they were given the opportunity to host a community service project as part of NHS, they both knew that they “wanted to use the experiences that we have learned and been through as a result of working at the hospital, in the hopes to make a positive impact on the community,” Reilly said. “It has been extremely eye opening to see how much of an impact this pandemic has had on the community.”
Sophia will be going to Springfield College in the fall and majoring in health science with plans to then attend graduate school and become a physician’s assistant. Reilly is headed off to Norwich University, a senior military college in Vermont, where she will be a member of the Corps of Cadets and major in nursing with the hopes of becoming a nurse practitioner in the future.
They said having NHS officer positions — Sophia is historian, Reilly is secretary — gave them “an opportunity to create this event in the hopes of helping as many people as we can.”
“We wanted to help our community in any way that we possibly could.”
The blood drive will run from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the school at 1050 Westminster St. and individuals can make an appointment online at http://bit.ly/mghmonty. All donors must bring a photo ID with birth date to their appointment and donors under age 17 need a signed parental consent. For more information, visit montytech.net.