Northwestern’s Interfraternity Council and Panhellenic Association teamed up to host a blood drive in Norris University Center on Monday and Tuesday.
For McCormick sophomore Devan Harrison, who serves as IFC’s VP of Engagement, the benefit of the initiative is twofold.
“One, donating blood is an amazing thing someone can do,” Harrison said. “But then also to show that, as the IFC and PHA, we can create events that help the community of Evanston and help Northwestern as a whole.”
To incentivize participation, a competition was established between IFC and PHA chapters, with the winning chapter getting a pizza party. In total, around 30 people participated in the blood drive, with the winning chapter being Zeta Beta Tau.
In addition to the contest, NU’s blood drive is part of a larger competition by Abbott, a healthcare and medical devices company headquartered in Illinois.
The campaign, which is in its second year, is titled “We Give Blood.” It’s run in association with the Big Ten conference, whose website features a running scoreboard that tracks each participating school’s number of donors.
At the end of the competition, which runs from Aug. 27 through Dec. 5, the school with the most donors will receive a $1 million prize from Abbott that can be used to “advance student or community health,” according to the Big Ten conference website.
Blood drive participants were not required to be associated with the IFC or PHA. NU Research Technician Lizzie Trzupek (Weinberg ’22) said the timing and location of the event happened to conveniently align with when she wanted to give blood.
“I was looking to give blood … I looked up where the Vitalant (blood donation collection) sites were and saw that there was one at Northwestern,” Trzupek said. “It was kind of serendipitous.”
SESP junior Brayden Golder, who is in his first year of IFC presidency, says one of his big goals is to expand the philanthropic aspect of Greek life beyond just chapter-specific events, specifically for fraternities.
“IFC has not done a lot of philanthropy events in years past,” Golder said.
He added that collaborating with the PHA has been extremely helpful in organizing the drive, as they have hosted large-scale philanthropy events before. Harrison added that depending on the success of this year’s blood drive, the group may look into “mak(ing) it an annual thing.”
Golder and Harrison also hope that events such as the blood drive can help to rehabilitate the perceived image of campus Greek life.
“The IFC and Greek life has had kind of a negative reputation many years past, and that’s just how it was,” Golder said. “But we are trying to create a better image.”
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