Homewood Blood Drive Draws Strong Support, But
Participation Numbers Dip
February's American Red Cross
blood
drive on the Homewood campus collected 327 units of
blood from 383 students, staff and faculty members who
signed in to be screened for blood donation. While the
Homewood drive is still one of the largest in the region,
this represents a decrease of 100 sign-ins and about 80
units of blood from last year's record-breaking February
drive.
From 2002 through the summer of 2003, the Johns
Hopkins Homewood drives continued to hold their own or
expand, bucking a national trend that saw blood collections
shrink during that period, in part because of increased
travel and medical restrictions on donors.
Since September 2003, however, the Homewood drives
have been less successful than in previous years. Several
factors may be involved in this slow-down. A number of
offices have moved from Homewood to other JHU locations,
including the Eastern campus, which launched its own blood
drives. And September's Hurricane Isabel may have
contributed to "donor fatigue"; at the September drive,
large numbers of walk-in donors or those with last-minute
appointments overwhelmed the Red Cross, which was
understaffed because of the hurricane. The Red Cross sent
letters to all donors from the September drive for whom
they had addresses, thanking them for their patience.
Johns Hopkins is planning to launch a campaign to
educate the university community about the importance and
process of blood donation, in the hope of boosting
participation in future drives.
Three student groups help to promote and staff the
drives on campus:
Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity,
Circle K service
club and the Red
Cross Corps. Retiree and staff volunteers often assist
at the drives as well. The Human Resources
Office of
Faculty, Staff and Retiree Programs has overall
administrative responsibility for the blood drives. For
more information, contact Caterina Provost-Smith at
cprovost@jhu.edu or 410-516-0138.
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2004
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