Taylor Thomas, part of the MHS staff, goes through the preliminary stages of donating blood,
including having her vitals checked by a member of the Community Blood Center. The blood
drive, organized by Teresa Franklin’s anatomy and physiology classes, exceeded its goal for
donations.
In the 2023-24 school year, Teresa Franklin and her anatomy and physiology students organized
and implemented the MHS blood drive. This was Franklin’s most successful year with blood
donations for the Community Blood Center, which provides blood for hospitals including
Fitzgibbon and Children’s Mercy.
“It was probably the smoothest year as far as handling the crowds,” said Franklin. “They gave us
even more staff. We also surpassed our goal for how much blood we wanted to collect.”
Much effort has to be put in when planning a blood drive, which includes not just learning
about blood, but also the safety around it all.
“We do study some about the background in class,” said Franklin. “We study the whole process
and how to prepare to get healthy for it. We talked to businesses around town and had them
help display posters and spread the word. Finally, we did a whole walk-through the day before
and taught them what each station does.”
Students in both of Franklin’s anatomy classes had their own jobs that they were responsible
for accomplishing for the blood drive. They had to help make posters and post about the drive
on social media.
“We did word of mouth, and each student recruited at least six people to come and donate,”
said Franklin.
Not everyone is allowed to donate blood as there are many restrictions to make sure people
can stay safe.
“They screen for certain health issues or medications, any type of recent illnesses – even travel
can interfere with it, depending on what countries or parts of the world that they have been to
recently,” said Franklin. “On top of all of that, the blood is tested once it arrives, but they do a
pre-screening anyway so they don’t go through the whole process if they know already if there
is going to be some kind of an issue that might put you or anyone at risk of passing on an
illness.”
There are also minimum age limits when it comes to giving blood.
“I would personally think that it is because you are still growing and developing,” said Franklin.
“That’s just the law; usually it’s 17, but some states allow 16-year-olds, and we are one of those
states. Each person is allowed to give one unit or pint of blood. They can give blood about every
six to eight weeks, up to six times a year.” Donating blood has several steps people have to pass
through before they can give blood.
“The whole process takes approximately an hour because you have to go through registration,
then a little medical exam where they check your vitals, heart rate and check your iron,” said
Franklin. “Then the donation is about 20 minutes; some are faster and some are slower. Last is
the recovery, where the patient is monitored to make sure they are feeling good. We make
sure no one is weak or pale, we give them snacks and drinks, and then they sit for about 10
minutes to let your body recover.
“We give refreshments and snacks like soda, Gatorade and cookies,” Franklin added. “We also
give out a free T-shirt to anyone that donated blood. Also, local businesses would offer
incentives like from Sonic they would give out free Route 44 coupons. Walmart made a
donation that we bought snacks with.”
Every year Franklin helps allay the concerns of future donors. Some people are used to it, while
others aren’t.
“Everybody reacts differently, but the key point is just to decide that there were a lot of people
who had a big fear of doing it, but they really still wanted to give blood. Junior Bailey Riley was
one that was super nervous, but she brought her mom in and built up the courage to give
blood,” said Franklin.
The event on March 11 exceeded all expectations for donors and the units of blood collected.
“We collected blood from 7:30 to 1:45. Each person had to schedule an appointment. They had
to reopen twice for us, we had filled all of the initial spots and then they had to make more
space for us twice,” said Franklin. “We set our goal at 180 and we registered 221 donors that
day. Ninety-nine of the donors were first-time donors, and we collected 191 overall units.”