This year the blood drive is on January 14th. Which matches the theme of Valentines Day. Melanie Davis is the coordinator for the blood drive this year because she is community events chair number 2 on the student council executive board. She worked with Heidi from the blood drive who helped with sign-ups and permission slips. They also put the signups online this year which is very new, which also made it a bit complicated. Student Council is very involved with the whole blood drive, all the members provide food and drinks for the donors and help out with sign-ups during lunch. They also help out with all the advertisement to make sure lots of people know about it and hopefully donate because it’s in high demand. On the day all of the executive board helps out, in the morning they all help carry the supplies, set up and help throughout the day. During the day student council members make sure the donors feel safe. Some of the regulations to donate are, you have to be 18+ or 16 with parental consent, and it is important to meet the weight and height requirements.

116 units were collected this year and 282 potential patients are helped because of our drive since 1 pint saves 3 lives. Muskego High school has donated 2,976 units of blood dating back to 1998. The most common blood type is Type A blood and there were 44 donations. Cold and flu seasons always have a huge impact on blood drives, as a result, there are fewer donors. They also make a goal to commit the blood to hospitals in advance. Our drive exceeded the goal of 98 by 19 units!  After all the donations are done it is all sent to the Blood Center of Wisconsin ‘s lab for testing. It is required by the FDA to go through multiple tests before given to patients. They perform 14 separate tests which include sexually transmitted diseases, West Nile virus, Hepatitis, and other illnesses. If a unit of blood passes the testing then it is determined safe for distribution. Many thought that the t-shirts student council made this year motivated a lot of kids. Overall this year we did really well.