Department of Health & Community Services

 

Blood Drive Service Learning Project

The Health and Community Services Department started a partnership with BloodSource North Valley in 1996 as a way to give our students work experience while making a contribution to the community. Every semester our students plan and implement multiple blood drives on campus. Blood drives are an especially satisfying service because the blood collected saves lives.

 

“It’s not often I can call home and tell my parents I saved a life.” Joe

 

Every semester we experiment with different approaches to recruiting donors and implementing blood drives. From the data we gather we make changes, refine techniques, and do another drive.

 We use the traditional approaches of fliers and classroom talks but we also implement other techniques. We don’t have money to spend on elaborate marketing campaigns so we use a lot guerilla tactics. We define guerilla tactics as methods that are inexpensive or free, unconventional and evoke a reaction from our target population. Just like in guerilla warfare we are a small army battling a bigger army of fear, ignorance and resistance. Our tactics surprise and we aren’t afraid to make a spectacle of ourselves. If dressing like a giant blood drop, or bouncing on a pogo stick, or singing a tune will bring in the donors, then we will do it.

 (click picture to enlarge)

 
       

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Our tactics are based on research. Recently we conducted a social marketing campaign aimed at blood donors. We surveyed 875 students from a representative sample of majors on campus and determined the types of images and messages they would most respond to in connection with blood donation. We combined those images and messages into posters. The posters can be viewed below.

     

Blood poster creators: J Bailey, J Baker, V Brown, J Butler, T Carter, J. Crespillo, C Cupples, S. Dodds, R Escallier, M Garcia, D Goni, T Kamm, E Lansdon, X Lee, M McClure, L Milburn, J Montgomery, L Needles, N Nepstead, A Palmer, J Patane, C Perizzolo, C Prusack, S Ranz, L Rhodes, J Seastrunk, Q Starr, C Stotts, D Suarez, M Tafoya, A Travis, R VanLeuven, N Winchester, M Wolcott

 

Once the posters were completed we assembled them on presentation boards and conducted an “art show” on a heavily used campus sidewalk. Pedestrians were invited to stop, look and rank our posters in the following categories: (1) most visually appealing; (2) most persuasive message; (3) most humorous; (4) most offensive; and (5) best overall blood donation poster.

 
       

Over 200 pedestrians stopped and participated in a four hour time period. The ranking sheets were tallied by age and gender and the winners from each category were taken for display at the next blood drive. We aren’t going to tell you which posters won in each category but we will tell that there was a wide variation in how people of different ages and genders responded to the posters.  We will let you decide for yourself which posters are the best. 

We aren’t done creating materials to market blood drives. The need for blood is continuous and so is our work. This is a project everyone can work on. If you need more reasons to consider blood donation and implementing blood drives consider the following facts:

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Four and a half million Americans would die each year without blood transfusions.

Less than 5% of the eligible population donates blood.

By age 72, ninety-five percent of all Americans will have used blood or one of the components that can be derived from blood.

Approximately 37,000 pints of blood are used each day in the United States.

The actual blood donation takes 5 to 7 minutes.

 

 

Recruiting blood donors isn’t the end of the effort. When they come to the blood drive they need to have a good experience. We try to be welcoming and appreciative throughout our donors’ visit. As they sign in we give each donor a nametag so that every worker will use their name as they go from station to station. At the recovery table, we provide homemade snacks, excellent personal service, conversation, stickers, t-shirts, prizes, juice drinking games and we say thank you often. To help the donor see how they are part of a bigger group of donors, we take their nametag from them and post it on a specially designed record keeping form. In the pictures below you see two of our record keeping devices – an American flag with our donors as stars (and some stripes) hosted by our version of Charlie’s Angels; and name tags and messages in hearts for our Valentine Day drive.

  Call your local blood bank today and donate.

         
               

 

 

 

 

 

This document is maintained by the HCSV Webmaster
Last updated: 10/10/2005