On Feb. 7 and 8, Volunteer ETSU sponsored a Red Cross blood drive in the D.P. Culp University Center ballroom.
Each donor was presented with a free music scratch card for a chance to win an iPod or music downloads.
Even with the possibility of winning a prize, it was the chance to help others that attracted donors to the blood drive at ETSU.
“You never know who it’ll save,” said Danny Peterson, a first-year graduate student. “It can help somebody, and it doesn’t require much you just show up.”
But doesn’t giving blood hurt?
“The needle looks really big, but it’s painless,” said Mike Ramsey, assistant professor of physical education, exercise and sport sciences.
Ramsey, who has been teaching at ETSU since last fall, said he donated almost a gallon of blood before moving here from Texas.
Both Peterson and Ramsey said they would encourage others to donate blood.
“Giving blood is a way to help the community,” Peterson said. “It takes little time, and it’s easy to do.”
There is an increasing demand for blood donations, said Thomas Hensley, an alumnus of ETSU. Hensley is currently in his second year as a Red Cross donor recruitment representative and personally donates blood every 56 days, he said.
Hensley helps coordinate blood drives in a region that consists of six counties: Washington, Carter, Greene, Johnson and Unicoi counties in Tennessee, and Mitchell County in North Carolina.
The Red Cross hosts approximately 250 drives in these six counties, collecting an estimated 8,300 units of blood each year, Hensley said.
Each unit or pint, of blood collected at one of these events helps support the demands of 103 hospitals within the region.
To help fulfill the needs of every hospital in the country, the Red Cross collects blood 363 days a year.
“There’s no substitute for blood,” Hensley said. “Every two seconds someone in the United States needs it.”
Approximately 4 million Americans donate blood, according to the Red Cross web site.
For more information, visit ww.redcross.org.

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