Residence Hall Association and National Residence Hall Honorary held their annual semester Blood Drive in Velzy Commons, Feb. 25-27.
The University of Wisconsin-Platteville is known to host one of the largest blood drives held in the midwest.
By hosting the blood drive, UW-Platteville is able to support the community and potentially save many lives throughout the midwest.
Emma Cleveland, RHA president and sophomore political science and sustainable and renewable energy systems double-major, discussed her involvement with the event and how she began planning for it at the beginning of the semester.
“It takes up to six or seven weeks to plan this event,” Cleveland said. “I had a checklist of all the things that needed to be done before it started.”
Cleveland continued to mention that the spring Blood Drive is more difficult to encourage donations because people tend to get sick more often during this time of the year.
This semester, they hoped to have 792 people donoate blood for the event.
“We are still having many people show up and give blood, which is really great,” Cleveland said. “We came very close to that; we had a total of 765 people.”
Patti Murphy, an employee for Red Cross, has been working at the Madison American Red Cross for three years.
“I love being able to travel and meet new, interesting people,” Murphy said. “Being able to do this is very humbling and rewarding.”
Alana Voss, a junior animal science and agriculture business double-major, has been donating ever since she had the initial opportunity to donate.
“I feel that, by coming, I’m doing a good deed and helping others. I like knowing that other people are coming to give blood so they can save somebody’s life,” Voss said.
Voss plans to attend future blood drives in order to help out with the short supply of blood.
“I like being able to come and volunteer my time at the Blood Drive. This is my second time helping, and I always feel good when I help out,” junior animal science major Natalie Schleicher said.
Schleicher expressed that attending a blood drive is very important because it is beneficial to give back to the Platteville community.
