Biology teacher Tim O’Keefe and SLUH’s Medical Careers Club organized the annual Blood Drive last week, collecting blood donations from 60 members of the SLUH community. This was the first Blood Drive in over a year, due to the Covid-19  pandemic. 

The first hurdle that the Medical Careers Club needed to jump in preparation for the event was the question of whether or not drawing blood from students and faculty members was safe under the conditions of the pandemic.

“Blood drives have been shown over time to be safe because they sterilize everything and there's no chance of spread of Covid during that process,” said O’Keefe.

Once it was determined that the Blood Drive was safe to return, O’Keefe and the Medical Careers Club set up a time for Mercy Hospital representatives to come into school during the day. 

“Mercy is the hospital that organizes it, and what they do is they use that blood for their patients in the hospital that struggle with cancer and that sort of thing,” said O’Keefe. “That's how the hospital uses the blood that we collect.”

In addition to the Mercy nurses that ran the blood drive, members of the Medical Careers Club helped keep patients healthy and physically ready to give blood.

“It ran really smoothly,” said O’Keefe. “I get those guys to volunteer to help out during the day; during different periods that they're off and during Studium, that sort of thing. They take care of the patients, walk them over to get snacks, just kind of make sure everybody's doing okay. I had a good number of volunteers to help with that, and it was great.”

“There were a lot of people you could tell were nervous to give blood but they still did it. So it's just nice to see them have the courage to still give blood,” said senior Brendan Stein who is also part of the Medical Careers Club. “We should be thankful for Mr. O'Keefe, for all his dedication and hard work he puts into a blood drive.”

The Blood Drive is one of the many annual events at SLUH that provide students with the chance to help their community, and specifically those in their community that are in need.

“I think it's an opportunity to be men for others,” said O’Keefe. “It's up to the students and faculty to give back to the community.”

In total, the Blood Drive collected 40 units of blood, totaling about 20 liters of blood collected.. 

“The need for blood donation has been really high, especially with Covid, because people are a little bit more tentative about it,” said O’Keefe. “There's always been a need for blood donation, and the need has been even greater in the past couple of years. It's just another way to help and give back to the community.”