BY KYLEE BARANEK

Starting at 6:00 A.M and ending at 4:00 P.M., newly inducted juniors and seniors of National Honors Society dedicated their time to helping the Red Cross set up for the bi-annual blood drive in the main gym.

This past Thursday was the second blood drive of this year, and according to Katherine Hart, 12, “The turn out this month was really good; we actually had to turn away some people because there were too many people who wanted to donate.”

Students who donate have to go through a certain process before they can give blood. There are areas set up where each student must answer questions about their medical history, which includes anything that could possibly affect the blood that they are donating. Next, students must be tested to be sure that there is enough iron in their blood. Then, they are sent to have their blood drawn. If a student does not have an efficient supply of iron, they are sent back to class. This did not affect the goal for a certain number of pints.

“Our goal was 55 pints, and we had 66 pints that we collected,” said Mr. Singleton, the teacher-adviser of National Honors Society.

The students that donated saved about 198 lives with the amount of blood that was donated.

When speaking about the rewards of the blood drive, Hart had this to say, “The blood drive can give students a taste of how simple helping others can be, it saves so many lives.”

The blood drive has become a great opportunity to help others, and by doing it during school hours, it makes it possible for students to do this while preventing them from taking time out of their busy schedules. Lives are saved and students are happy that they had the opportunity to help.