A clinical group of UTRGV nursing students, including their instructor Nancy Nadeau, a clinical associate professor of the School of Nursing, are partnering up with South Texas Blood & Tissue Center (STBTC) to host their first ever blood drive.
The blood drive will take place from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 1 in Health Affairs Building East Skills Lab 1.112 on the Edinburg campus and will be open to eligible faculty, staff, students and community members who wish to donate.
STBTC will bring its own team of 15 to 16 licensed phlebotomists and nurses who will be doing the blood draws and needle sticks, while UTRGV nursing students will help coordinate and manage the event.
All donations will stay in the Rio Grande Valley for use within hospitals, emergencies and in STBT centers.
Every person who donates will receive a $10 Subway gift card donated by STBTC, a pen and a thank-you card on behalf of the School of Nursing. Donors will also be eligible to enter a raffle for a chance to win three gift cards.
“We will have three Visa gift cards,” Nursing senior Melissa Gaouette said. “One of them is going to be $50 and the other two will both be $25. So, three lucky individuals will have the opportunity to win those gift cards if they donate. We will also have a personalized frame and we will be taking videos and photos of the individuals who donate so they can have a personal memory of joining us in this journey and this experience of conducting our first blood drive.”
Kristopher Reyes, a nursing senior, said that STBTC had been very accommodating and helpful to the team in teaching them the registration system. Reyes said their biggest challenge was finding donors willing to sign up to schedule time out of their day to donate.
“We want to get as many as we can to come in and donate just to save lives and make a difference,” Karen Carranza, a nursing senior said. “It’s really needed. Like, when we do clinicals, we see it at the hospitals and stuff where they need blood a lot.”
Registering donors with appointments will save individual’s time, instead of waiting in line for long periods, Gaouette said.
Reyes said that walk-ins are welcome, but recommends scheduling ahead of time to set a place.
Asked on the specific goal of 120 donors, he replied, “South Texas Blood & Tissue Center also works with UTSA and, so, the reason for 120 is that we’d like to have a little competition with UTSA to see who can get the most donors. They are a larger school than us, but their records have shown they usually pull off about 60 donors, 60 students, so, as UTRGV, we want to see if we can top them out, double [their numbers].”
As of last Wednesday, the group had successfully reached their goal, but are still accepting donors, due to the fact that “20 [percent] of donors may be deferred after the prework up survey and testing,” according to their Facebook page.
“We will also be sending text reminders of when their scheduled appointment will be and I think, if they were to miss, we will contact them via text message to see when the next available time would be or when they can arrive and then we can accommodate based on how we’re doing on the time slots,” Gaouette said.
All three nursing students said they felt a combination of excitement, anxiousness and fear for the event, but enthusiastic to see the registered donors helping out the community.
“This event is part of our senior project for our Community Nursing class, and, hopefully, this [blood drive] becomes a tradition for the School of Nursing to continue on,” Reyes said.
For more information on the blood drive, visit facebook.com/events/263458844574054/.
