by Caroline Anderson, Amelia Bates and Bridget Capella

FAIRHOPE, Ala.—On October 10-11, Key Club partnered with LifeSouth to host the fall blood drive in the library.

Students from all grades volunteered to donate blood during school on Thursday and Friday. The donations impact the community in a variety of different ways.

“For every single donation we get it saves three lives with all the different components that it splits into and some of those can be ready in as quick as 24 hours,” said Jon Porter with the nonprofit LifeSouth Blood Center. “The vial goes to Gainesville, Florida where you’ll know if it’s good blood and immediately they can take it and start stripping it down. They’ll leave it as whole blood, or they’ll put it into the platelets, or into red cells, and plasma, and all the different parts that they need depending on what the needs are at the hospital that we get ordered for.”

High school students nationwide contribute to a large portion of annual blood donations. Hundreds of donations come from Fairhope High School alone. 

“The average is 40 a day and we come for two days twice per year. So there’s probably 240 donations from Fairhope High School per year, and we’re in almost every high school, so you can imagine it’s a lot,” said Rachel Isakson with LifeSouth. “We have somebody giving platelets right now that go directly to cancer patients.”

Over the two days LifeSouth was at the school, students donated with a variety of reasons in mind. Some people, like junior Kaitlyn Kalagher, helped out because family members are in the medical field and they felt it was their duty to assist. Others were inspired by recent events.

“I wanted to be able to help people in any way I could after the hurricane,” said Aubrey Ivy, junior.

Blood donations and their components do more than just help people in emergencies. For example, platelets are an integral part of cancer treatments. Junior Kaitlyn Jones donated platelets Thursday.

“It’s another way to reach out and help people,” Jones said.

Over 80 students donated over the course of two days.