Tamara McConnell and Kearsten Ball

Writers

Dedicated to saving lives, the Oklahoma Blood Institution (OBI) held their annual blood drive at Marlow High School on Wednesday, Aug. 28.

Previously, in the month of May, OBI underwent a severe blood shortage and called upon emergency blood donations – on average, almost a quarter of their supply comes from schools.

Tina Wedel, the mobile supervisor of OBI, explained why donations are very much appreciated.

“The purpose behind the event is to get volunteers to come in and donate blood for our hospitals to save patients in need of blood transplants,” said Wedel. “There were a lot of participants this year, but we could always use more.”

In order to be eligible to donate, the person must have been at least 16 years old and weighed at least 125 pounds or 18 years or older and 110 pounds.

Eager to participate in the event, junior Mikaylee Ribble described her experience of donating blood.

“This was my first year giving blood and I was super nervous, but the people were so kind and helpful,” Ribble said. “I have always wanted to save lives, and giving blood was a simple way of doing that.”

With just one person’s donation, the amount of blood drawn has enough power to save up to three lives.

Students were encouraged to give blood with gifts and prizes, such as receiving a free limited edition Bigfoot t-shirt and either a free side at Whataburger, an entry ticket to Frontier City, the Oklahoma Science Museum or Safari Joe’s H20 waterpark.

Marlow’s students and faculty’s willingness to donate ended in a success, and the OBI hopes to continue their tradition of holding blood drives with the school in order to help save lives.