A tradition continues at Franklin Park Middle School in Salem for the 19th year on Wednesday as the school’s 7th grade science classes host a Red Cross Blood Drive.
Science Teacher Joni Dorff agreed to start the drive and made it part of the curriculum.
“We talk about the heart and the circulatory system and the types of blood. We talk about who can donate to who, who can receive from who, and the importance of it. And that’s the whole purpose of it, to encourage them to be donors themselves someday. They can’t give blood now but they can go out and get donors. And in those 19 years, we’ve collected over 1300 units of blood so I keep telling the kids we have saved over 3800 lives because each donation can save up to 3 people’s lives.”
Dorff says after learning about blood drives and the need for blood from the Red Cross, the drive becomes the students.
“This is their project, they have to be involved. They recruit the donors, we make posters, they announce it on WJBD. We choose someone to send out a school reach message. They work at the blood drive as well at the registration, canteen, clean up, and setup. It’s a really big deal here at Franklin Park.”
Dorff says it’s also a competition as the students try and beat the amount of blood collected in past years. The goal of Wednesday’s drive is 77 units. The record amount collected was 96. Dorff is proud to say the drive is one of the biggest middle school blood drives in Southern Illinois.
The Blood Drive is more critical this year than ever with the number of canceled drives and shortage of blood. There is a special need for type 0 blood.
The Blood Drive is being held in the Franklin Park Gym from two to seven pm. You can make an appointment at RedCrossBlood.org, but you are welcome to just drop in at any time during the drive.
