On November 1, Barons and Knights made a difference one pint at a time.

  “We had more people come this year at [Andover] than we did last year,” says Andover parent and PTOC Blood Drive Representative Beth Sinclair. “[Lahser] had lower numbers, [but] in the end we still collected 161 pints between the two schools.  Blood can be split into three components:  plasma, platelets, and red blood cells, so one donation can be used to help three people. Our drive technically could have impacted 480 people.”

  Tuesday, November 1, marked the 4th Annual Blood Drive Challenge between Andover and Lahser High School.  From 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM in the field houses of both high schools, the eligible student body, district parents, and community members came together to donate blood for the cause.  At the end of the drive, Andover had collected eighty-nine pints and Lahser seventy-two pints.

   “[It] started as just a blood drive over the last ten, twelve years where they organized a place for people to be able to come in and donate as a volunteer-type idea,” says English Teacher and Student Leadership Advisor Krista Laliberte.  “Over the last four or five years we decided to give an initiative for students to come in and adults and community members alike to come in and donate on our side of town.  We decided that since Lahser already had the blood drive as well, we would [combine] them and go off of a rivalry to create an incentive for more people to donate.”

    “[This] annual competition we have between [the high schools shows] who can collect more pints of blood in a 12 hour time frame, but in the end everyone wins because we are all doing something great for the community,” adds Sinclair. “It was originally my idea, and I went to then Superintendent Gaynor to ask for his support.  He loved the idea, and it took off from there.” 

  According to Laliberte, there are a lot of different elements that go into planning the drive and it traditionally takes two to three months to set up.

  “Every year there is a student leadership member that is in charge of the blood drive [and] this year it is Brenna Turner. We try to have the student stay on for a few years at a time, that way it’s an easier organizational process and then they learn and train the next person that will take it over,” she explains.  “We send out information on LISTSERVS through e-mail contacts of anybody that the people in charge know.  We also contact previous donors, send out e-mail blasts to try to get any new and existing parents, [and student leadership members] go through during seminar and try to get new [student] donors.”

  Junior Brenna Turner, who took the lead in coordinating the blood drive at Andover, sees the positive impact an event like this can have in the community.

   “I told a lot of kids who were scared to donate [that] after you donate the first time you’ll keep coming back every blood drive if you have a good experience,” she says. “That means that you’re donating for the rest of your life and [there are] just so many lives that you’re affecting and helping.  When you donate a pint of blood, you can save three lives, so it’s really making a huge difference.”

  The winner of the Blood Drive Challenge gets a banner hung in their school for a year.  For the past two years, the banner has resided in the Lahser gym, but this year Andover has “won” the rights to the banner.

  According to Turner, Laliberte, and Sinclair, although this drive encourages friendly competition between the two high schools, it is not about the winner or the loser.

  “The banner will be brought back and put in the gym and so Andover has the title for this year, however, it’s really about the awareness and spreading the word and getting the kids involved,” explains Laliberte.  “The bigger picture is trying to save lives, not the banner. It’s just nice that the banner worked out in our favor.”

     “[Using] our rivalry to “compete against” each other [shows] what we can accomplish together for the greater good of our community,” agrees Sinclair. “Only thirty-eight percent of the population is eligible to donate blood, and only five percent of those eligible actually do, so if we can motivate people who might not otherwise donate to do so, then that is the goal.”

  For more information about donating blood, go to www.redcrossblood.org.