Blood Drive Nets 60 Lifesaving Pints
In a wonderful display of caring for their fellow man, Huntington High School students, faculty and staff members donated 60 pints of blood last week during a fall drive organized by the school's Key club.
Blood and blood products are always in demand. There seems to be a perpetual shortage of the lifesaving substance. So, blood drives such as last week's are no trivial matter. Key club faculty advisors Kelly Krycinski and Gina Colica were more than pleased with how the event turned out.
Club officers Michelle Rosenbauer (president), Alexandra Martinolich (vice-president), Michael Valente (secretary), Sam Levine (treasurer) and Holly Flores (historian) "were all involved and worked very hard the entire day," Ms. Colica said. "We also had some additional Key clubbers who volunteered to be escorts during their lunch periods."
"This year's drive was a success as usual," Principal Carmela Leonardi said. "I was able to donate blood this time and was very pleased when the staff working with us complimented me on the wonderful, generous, polite, patient and very well mannered students at Huntington High School. They were right on all counts."
The Key club will sponsor a spring blood drive in April 2011. The event is tentatively slated for Friday, April 8. For information about participating in it, contact Ms. Colica at gcolica@hufsd.edu.
Long Island Blood Services "has been fulfilling its commitment to the people of Long Island and Queens for over 40 years by supplying life-saving blood products and services to approximately 50 hospitals throughout Nassau, Suffolk and Queens counties," according the group's website. "Headquartered in Westbury, LIBS is the largest region within New York Blood Center, partnering with over 1,400 business, education, government, religious and community organizations to conduct an estimated 300 mobile blood drives each month."
According to LIBS, the region the group covers "has never independently met its need for blood products. Each day, LIBS relies on the generosity of nearly 800 volunteer blood donors from diverse backgrounds to ensure a continuous supply for the one in three of us who will require a transfusion during our lifetime. Thanks to our donors, our staff is able to work in close cooperation with local hospitals 24 hours a day, seven days a week to best manage blood products for patients in need of life-saving transfusion services."