Rebecca Najera
Editor-in-Chief
The Center for Student Life and Involvement hosted their 6th annual 50 Gallon Challenge blood drive, and the results are not disappointing.
“Word’s getting out,” said Director of Student Life, Lauren Tyler. “People are starting to know what the event is.”
Carter BloodCare partnered with The Center for Student Life and collected 437 units between March 27 and 31, amounting to 54.6 gallons for the event. This continues the streak of obtaining the 50-gallon goal.
“This year, we did try some totally different things,” said Tyler. “We did some different mobile locations around campus to try and cater [to students]. We want it to be the most convenient for everyone.”
Tyler feels that since the campus continues to grow, having different locations for students to donate is ideal.
“We spent two days over in the nursing and health sciences center,” said Tyler. “Monday was really slow over there, but Tuesday was great.”
In the past, the blood drive has taken place in the Apache Rooms throughout the week of the event, but by spending time in the nursing building and having other mobile locations set up around campus, Tyler feels that reaching the 50-gallon goal was easier to achieve.
“We did Fifth St. on Thursday and Friday because we wanted to reach out to the community and make it accessible to them,” said Tyler. “Sometimes trying to find the building on campus we thought might be hard.”
To make it even easier on community members wanting to donate, parking spaces were reserved near the mobile location. This was an effort to save people from frustration when trying to find a place to park who might have otherwise ended up not donating.
Like previous blood drives, there were t-shirts and prizes given away throughout the week, majority being provided by community businesses.
“We’re thankful for all the local businesses that give to this,” said Tyler. “That’s how we’re able to give out some of the [prizes]. Carter BloodCare provides a lot of those. We don’t spend our money in donations or purchasing those things, which is really important for some people to know.”
The Center for Student Life doesn’t pay for any of the prizes aside from the t-shirts given out to each donor for free.
“The Chuy’s gift cards, the free smoothies and all those things are all donated by local businesses,” said Tyler. “So as we continue to grow, it’s really helpful that these business are continuing to support the event.”
Since the 50-gallon goal has been reached every year since the event originated, Tyler hopes that students will continue to donate.
“It helps that we hit our goal every year,” said Tyler. “It gives us a little bit more incentive for people to give since they know that statistically, we have always hit our goal.”
