Billy the Blood Drop

This semester I decided to be involved on campus. I applied for a position as a manager of the Blood Drive, which is part of the Service Activities. I had been involved with the Service Activities program on campus two other semesters, and loved it, so I wanted to be part of it again. I had a phone interview during the summer and was extended the position.

The first few week of the semester I recruited and interviewed five others to be on my council. We met weekly planning and organizing the six day blood drive which would be held on our campus. Our responsibility was to work with the Red Cross and BYU-Idaho to coordinate the event. We only had a month to find roughly 800 people to sign up to donate blood and 30-40 people to volunteer at the blood drive.

We did everything we could think of. We sent our campus emails, placed banners and poster all around campus, announced the event in our classes, and had booths in a busy place on campus to recruit. I felt like a missionary again. I had to get out my comfort zone and talk to everyone about the event (contacting). I had to pass out literature (pass along cards and pamphlets). I had to stand by the booth and yell at crowds as they walked by (street preaching). I took phone numbers and names of friends of those who signed up (referrals from converts). I looked at past records to get information of those who donated in the past (Former Investigator Sheets). And I shared why it was important for them to donate (testifying).


After working to death, we finally held the event. Everything seemed to go pretty well. Not everyone who went to donate could. Some were deferred before they could even get to the chair, and some couldn't bleed enough while in the chair. So our goal was to get 490 pints of blood. Luckily we got 498!

This is my friend Kimball and me.

BYU-Idaho's Blood Drive is the largest blood drive in Idaho. This video is pretty much how we felt when it was over. After our last day, I went to bed that night and slept 11 hours.