Dominion’s Red Cross Club is a service organization that spreads awareness and helps people and families in need. Typically, the club tries to host blood drives every year but due to the pandemic it had been at a hiatus until now. The drive happened Monday, March 3rd from 2-6 pm.
The goal for donating blood this year was 25 units. 44 people signed up and the club reached their goal, and the drive accepted walk-ins if someone did not sign up before. The club starting planning in October, and advertised with flyers and Instagram posts.
Co-President Asiyah Moiz participated in giving blood. Anyone who gave blood donated either a pint or pound depending on their weight and height. Another factor is the age requirement, participants had to be 18 or older to get their blood drawn without parent permission. The minimum age to give blood with a parent’s signature is 16. “I sat in on a leadership meeting with Dr. Brewer, and we talked about the logistics of everything ahead of time and Mr. West has helped coordinate a lot of it,” Moiz said.
Donating blood saves lives and doing so reminds individuals of the Red Cross and their goal. “This is kind of like the biggest thing you can do to give back to the community so we wanted to take a bigger step rather than our usual like making cards,” Hannah Mottaghi said. The Red Cross Club had communicated with the local Red Cross chapter in the Northern Virginia region to help make this happen.
This blood drive was available to people in the community including parents and other members. “We encouraged the community to donate blood, this time because we started this up again [so] we had a lower level goal. We hope to have a higher goal in the future,” the club’s sponsor Molly Menickelly said. A blood drive is the ultimate goal for every Red Cross [club], so in the future the club hopes to work with local hospitals and more people.
Since many of the advertisements reached the school’s and students’ attention, the club had over 40 students donate blood. Senior Herbert Mackay donated his blood [this being his second time] and explained the process he had to go through. Mackay is 18 years old and did not need parent permission. “I filled out this form on my phone, showed them my ID, and then got asked a few questions by one of the nurses, they said I was good to go and they put a needle on my arm and drew blood,” Mackay said.
Dominion’s Red Cross Club hopes to work with the local Red Cross team again in the future and plans to host drives more often. To stay up to date on what Dominion’s Red Cross Club is doing, follow their Instagram @dominionrcs.
