At a sign-in table outside Monday’s blood drive, LifeSource Account Manager Maureen Crowley asked an approaching student if he was there to be a hero.
“I suppose,” the student responded with a tentative chuckle.
“Everybody laughs at that,” Crowley said. “But it’s so true, albeit maybe corny.”
According to Crowley, 81 people, all but about four of them students, gave blood at Monday’s drive, which was hosted by LifeSource and Student Blood Services. Their goal was to get at least 70 people to donate blood. The drive continues today.
LifeSource is a nonprofit organization that coordinates blood drives and distributes blood to hospitals in the Chicago area. Each donation can help save up to three lives, Crowley said.
Working alongside Crowley was Kristin Leasia, a Student Blood Services volunteer who said blood donation drives hold personal importance for her.
“When I was born, I had heart problems, and so I required a couple of pretty extensive surgeries that required blood donating,” the Weinberg sophomore said. “Ever since then, I’ve felt really strongly about it. I feel like I should give back.”
Leasia estimates that she has donated blood eight to ten times, often at Stanford University, where she was treated for her heart problems. She has donated twice at Northwestern and plans to participate again today.
To help raise the profile of Monday’s event, Emery Moorehead, tight end of the 1985 Super Bowl Champion Chicago Bears, talked with participants and signed autographs. Moorehead, a graduate of Evanston Township High School, said donating blood is “the right thing to do.”
“It doesn’t take anything out of you,” Moorehead said. “Not only do I encourage it, I do it myself.”
Inside the Louis Room, Weinberg freshman Paul Devlin donated blood for the first time. After filling out forms about his medical history, Devlin received a blood test, he said. Then his temperature and blood pressure were tested, and soon he was squeezing a stress ball while his blood was being collected, he said.
“I’m feeling fine,” he said after donating. “I got a little tired during – I was yawning a lot – but I’m feeling good now.”
The entire blood-donating process takes an hour or less, with the actual blood-drawing lasting only eight minutes, Crowley said. Still, only 5 percent of Americans, and 3 percent of Chicagoans, donate blood, and that’s a problem, she said.
“By the year 2011, it’s forecasted by the American Association of Blood Banks that we won’t have enough blood for the needy,” she said.
Not everyone who showed up to give blood Monday was successful. Crowley estimates that 15 people who show up cannot donate at each drive, due to recent international travel or medical conditions.
Some students were told to come back Wednesday because of low blood pressure, illness or low iron content in their blood, among other reasons.
Crowley thanked these students for coming and encouraged them to bring friends to Wednesday’s drive.
The need for blood donations increases during holidays because of travel accidents, and much of the blood donated this week will go to Thanksgiving travelers, Crowley said. She encouraged students to come to Wednesday’s blood drive and to bring friends.
Monday’s event was held from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the Louis Room of the Norris University Center. The second part of the drive will be held from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. today.
“I always say if you want to be powerful, do something powerful,” Crowley said. “I don’t think there’s anything more important than saving a life.”
