Every year, The American Red Cross awards a college or university with the College of the Year title. This year, Slippery Rock is in the running. With plenty blood drives happening yearly, along with the numerous amount of donors, it is no question that Slippery Rock is the university to beat for the title.
The College of the Year title is an award that is given by the American Red Cross that represents schools that go above and beyond to give back and help their community.
Laurel Dagnon, program director of the blood drives, explained the importance of this award.
“To the American Red Cross, this award represents the essence of their mission, which is volunteering, giving back to the community and saving lives and we do all three of these at blood drive events,” she said.
Dagnon expressed that every pint of blood saves three people’s lives. Although she loves seeing students come out and donate blood, she mentioned that to achieve the title of College of the Year, she would love to see more students come out and support a good cause.
“It’s really about getting more people involved. Only 3% of the population gives blood and in our lifetime, about 87% of people need blood, so that doesn’t quite add up. It would be great if the same people kept giving, but in order to be crowned the College of the Year, we need to build a bigger base.”
Along with being in the running for the College of the Year, SRU has also been selected to be a part of the “We Challenge U” promotion. The “We Challenge U” promotion challenges other colleges to get involved with helping to donate blood.
Dagnon expressed that this challenge is a great way for colleges to get involved because everybody loves a challenge.
“We’re challenging other schools to get involved to, although we’re pretty sure we are going to be the winners,” said smiling. “It’s not about winning or losing for ourselves, but generating more people to give blood so that we can save a lot of lives.”
While SRU strives to donate more and more blood, that doesn’t mean that we’re not close to reaching our goal, Dagnon said.
President of the SRU Red Cross Club and senior public health and nonprofit management major, Chloe Rout, 22, said that SRU is very close to reaching their goal.
The goal for all of the blood drives held on campus are just over 100 pints of blood. The goal for our most recent blood drive was ninety-five pints, but SRU exceeded the goal by collecting 105 pints. With numbers like that, Slippery Rock is definitely close to winning College of the Year, Rout said.
In order to win the title, it’s not about a certain number of pints to donate, but rather which school can donate the most pints.
Rout explained how proud she would be if Slippery Rock won the title of College of the Year. She said that the CSIL office works hard to promote the blood drives and find volunteers to help out.
“I think we have a pretty good chance of winning this thing. Winning would not only be great for the school, but also for the volunteers and the SRU Red Cross Club. The members of the club are so passionate about winning this title and it’s an honor to see them work so hard to achieve something not only for them, but for everybody,” she said.
Freshman public health major, Rachel Good, 18, also admitted that she would be very proud if SRU won the title.
“I think it’s a firm possibility that we will win this thing. Not only would I be very proud of us, but I would also be very impressed,” she said. “Seeing the amount of blood that we donate is amazing. It will not only help us win the title, but it will also helps us save lives.”
