The Upper School annual blood drive organized by the Upper School Council saw a remarkable turnout of 45 donors of both students and faculty on Mar. 5. The blood drive came during a time when the national blood shortage has reached critical levels, with the Red Cross declaring 2024 to be the lowest number of blood donors in the last 20 years. SPA students and faculty step up to combat this shortage.

Senior Henry Choi described the process as “simple and easy,” commenting on the sign-up, registration, and blood donation. “I had an overall positive experience with the blood drive,” Choi noted directly after giving blood.

Students like Junior Andy Allen stepped up to donate blood. Motivated to support his community, Allen said, “I came to donate blood because I wanted to help out, and I know there are national blood shortages.”

Karmaliani highlighted the success of the blood drive, stating that it has been running for “a long time,” and this year’s turnout, with 11 more signups than last year, is particularly encouraging.

USC President Audrey Seneratna emphasized the straightforward nature of the process, attributing its success to the resources provided by the Red Cross.

Although the process was easy, the blood drive was very delayed, causing many students to miss class and experience long waiting times. Students were required to bring identification, and many students’ pre-blood donation physicals took longer than usual.

“We had a couple of no-shows and not being fully equipped to get ready to give blood such as parental consent forms,” said USC member Cernena Karmaliani.

Despite being 30 minutes behind, they were able to get back on schedule for the second half of the day and received support from administrators in excusing students from missing class to donate blood.

The Red Cross reaching out considers “SPA a really good place to get blood from,” and “asked if they could do two next year,” according to Karmaliani. “We are hoping to do one in the fall and in the spring,” she said as SPA consistently exceeds the blood donation standard for the Red Cross and noting the importance of blood donationg during the national shortage.

“Make sure to donate blood” said Karmaliani, “its really important, your saving lives and keeping [the blood drive] tradition going.” If in-school doesn’t work for you, their are other locations in the twin cities to donate blood to the Red Cross.