Wichita State alumna Kim Cook takes a no-nonsense approach to blood donation.

“I’m not using it all,” she said. Cook works for TRIO Student Support Services on campus. “There are so many reasons to donate. Why not?”

Cook spent almost an hour and a half at last Wednesday’s American Red Cross blood drive in the Heskett Center.

“Donating blood gets me out of the office for a few minutes,” she said.

After donating, Cook ate snacks at a recovery table while talking with the helpful red-vested volunteers offering drinks.

“I’m not an O blood type—a universal donor,” Cook said. “But A-positive is so common, it makes sense to donate.”

The Red Cross doesn’t normally schedule blood drives at WSU during the summer, but blood shortages nationwide prompted the event.

“The goal today is 47 units of whole blood and five apheresis donors, which is equivalent to two units a piece of double red cells,” said Ron Gilmore, collections operations supervisor for the Red Cross.

“Typically when we come here, we get at or better than our goal,” Gilmore said. “The last time we were here on April 4, we collected 57 units.”

Sally Beckett, the Heskett Center fitness and wellness assistant coordinator, believes blood drives at WSU could be better.

“Last spring’s drive was a little slow the first day, but on the second day it picked up. So we didn’t really meet our goal on the first day but overall we did OK,” Beckett said.

“We could have, on a two-day drive, maybe 150 people come through, but maybe only 70 of them are able to produce blood,” she said.

Beckett said potential donors who find out they’re unable to donate is a common problem.

Women often are anemic and find out just before donating. International students come to drives and discover the Red Cross can’t take blood from them until they’ve been here for three years.

Difficulties in the donation process can discourage prospective donors and, for Beckett, raising awareness for blood drives is a constant challenge.

“I’ve been doing this for five years, this month. This will be my 16th blood drive,” Beckett said. “I think they’ve been doing blood drives here since, or almost since, they opened the building.”

A goal for Beckett is to solicit student groups to take a larger role in blood drives at WSU.

“At some of the bigger universities, it seems like student groups take it over and the coordinator’s job becomes making sure the groups show up,” she said. “We really want to see Wichita State students take over more and student groups taking over more and wanting to get involved. Maybe young Democrats running it in the fall, and maybe the Republicans running it in the spring.”

Beckett hopes volunteers from sororities, fraternities, pre-professional clubs and athletes on campus will step forward to help.

“If we could turn this into a campus drive instead of just a Heskett drive that would be ideal,” she said.

For students, Beckett said it’s also an opportunity for volunteering credit.

“I think sometimes young students are afraid of needles and blood, but there are other things they can do to volunteer,” she said. “They don’t have to see the blood.”

“We always need plenty of volunteers,” Beckett said. “They save three lives for every hour that they volunteer.”

The next blood drive at WSU is Sept. 12-13 at the Heskett Center.  Those interested in volunteering may contact Beckett at [email protected].