Digital Donor

Congratulations, Brenham High School! The school received the Award of Merit in the category of School of the Year from the AABB, an international blood banking organization. The Blood Center presented the award Monday evening at the Brenham ISD Board of Trustees meeting.

Kevin Shipley, Donor Recruitment Manager for The Blood Center of Brazos Valley, presents the AABB Award of Merit to Joe Antkowiak and Mark Thiel, Brenham High School blood drive chairpersons. Also pictured are Misty VanDusen and Gary Moore, account representatives for The Blood Center.

To give you an idea of all the great things Brenham High School does to promote saving lives, here’s a copy of the nomination The Blood Center submitted for this award.

Guided by outstanding leaders and embraced by a supportive community, Brenham High School sets the gold standard not just for high school groups, but for all Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center groups that aim to help save lives by hosting blood drives.

Aiming high
The school celebrated 30 years of successful blood drives with a special drive on Nov. 25, 2008. For this occasion, they wanted to break a recently set record and collect more than 500 units. Using the theme “Exceed the Need” and The Blood Center’s Power of Life high school blood drive tools, the school’s blood drive chairperson, co-op teacher Joe Antkowiak, vowed to shave off all his hair if the students hit their goal.

He kept that promise, as they beat their goal with flying colors – collecting a total of 572 units from 483 donors, thanks to automation technology that brought in 74 double red cell donations and 15 red blood cell-plasma donations, in addition to 394 whole blood donations. It was Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center’s largest blood drive that was not related to Sept. 11 or a world-record attempt.

Engaging the community
Brenham’s blood drive program succeeds because of the sheer amount of work put forth by the students and chairpersons Joe Antkowiak and shop teacher Mark Thiel, with ample support from the administrators. Students in the Co-op Program sponsor the drive, enhancing Power of Life educational materials and tools with their own strategies, visiting classrooms to spread the word and conducting blood drive trivia during the morning announcements.

Brenham High School invites the whole community to participate in their blood drive, with the blood drive committee visiting area businesses and nearby schools to collect in-kind donations and conduct sign-ups. The local radio station and newspaper are supportive, running PSAs and news items to promote the drive. In 2008, about one-third of all blood donations given in the city of Brenham were made at Brenham High School’s drives.

Businesses display fliers and offer either food or monetary donations so the students and Blood Center staff can enjoy breakfast and lunch during the drive. From Blue Bell Ice Cream (headquartered in Brenham) to HEB, Walmart and the local Coca-Cola distributorship, Brenham businesses band together to make the blood drive a special event for the whole community.

Making it a special event
On the day of the drive, students arrive as early as 4 a.m. to begin cooking breakfast for the staff and blood donors. While much of the food is donated, students also run a concession stand at athletic events to raise money for many more items.

School administration allows the blood drive to have use of several classrooms, displacing multiple classes for the day so more lives can be saved. The drive runs until 6 p.m., so individuals who work during the day but want to donate may do so after work.

Overall impact on the region
Brenham High School conducts three blood drives a year, averaging 338 donations per drive in 2008. From 1998 to 2008, their annual collections have increased a whopping 382 percent, and they have been our top-collecting high school for five of the past six years. Their donation total just since 1998 has been almost 7,000 donations.

They are regular participants in The Blood Center’s annual “Real World” blood drive workshop – driving from more than two hours away to attend the educational program, which teaches students how to conduct successful drives and how their blood drives have an impact on saving lives. Clearly, their commitment to the program has been effective.

The blood drive is a perfect fit for the students in the Co-op Program, who are learning skills like marketing, promoting and presenting to enter to the work world, and preparing for the blood drives gives them hands-on experience.

By going to the lengths they do to make blood drives such big events, Antkowiak and Thiel are helping the students understand how important it is to donate blood, and creating a donor base that will continue donating blood into their adulthoods.

George, left, and Andy Taquard give an interview for an Alvin Community College news program.

Father knows best – especially in George Taquard’s case. A longtime blood donor, George instilled in his son, Andy, the value of saving lives.  Now donating blood is something the father and son do together, as they most recently did Tuesday morning at Alvin Community College’s blood drive.

Andy, the chief of police at ACC, has almost caught up to his father in number of donations. Tuesday’s donation was George’s 83rd pint; it was Andy’s 82nd.

George has been giving for 56 years because he knows blood must come from one person to be given to another; no amount of money can save a life if blood isn’t available. “You can’t transfuse dollars,” he said.

Andy has been giving for 28 years and has had two personal experiences with needing blood. He used two units during a surgery in 1975, and his daughter received blood during a brain surgery in 1983.

“This is important for every family out there that has a loved one who could need blood someday,” Andy said. “And I hope when I’m my dad’s age, I’m still giving just like he is.”

Whether your blood runs maroon or burnt orange, in a couple of weeks it’ll be that time again to help your team save lives in the annual Colors of Commitment Blood Drive Challenge.

The long-time rivalry between the two oldest public universities in the state of Texas, University of Texas Longhorns and the Texas A&MAggies, has been seen on the football field for years. So long ago, that many students today probably couldn’t tell you how it all came about.

Photo Courtesy: Steve Wilke

But, every Thanksgiving Day (or Thanksgiving weekend), the Aggies and the Longhorns sit back to root on their team during the Lone Star Showdown. The game gets fierce and the fans gets rowdy, but that’s what Texas college football is all about.

Last year, the Longhorns won convincingly, but the same could not be said for their efforts to help save lives.

The Colors of Commitment is a challenge today, but when it started almost a decade ago, the blood drive event was a way to give back. In 1999, in preparation for the big game, the Aggies held their traditional pep rally and bonfire. That year, a long-standing turned into a tragic event and 12 students lost their lives.

The tight knit A&M student body rallied around and decided they would honor their fellow classmates by hosting an annual blood drive event. Little did they know, years later Longhorns would roll up their sleeves to join the cause.

With Longhorns and Aggies active in the drive, it only made sense to build a friendly competition known as the Colors of Commitment Blood Drive Challenge.

Since 2006, the Aggies have brought in significantly more donors. But 2009, is a new year and anything could happen.

   
    Aggies: 
    2008 – 2,025 lives saved.
    2007 – 1,698 lives saved.
    2006 – 1,116 lives saved.

   Longhorns:
   2008 – 1,005 lives saved.
   2007 – 462 lives saved. 
   2006 – 456 lives saved.         

Starting November 18 through November 22, whether you’re a Longhorn or Aggie or just a supporter of one of the two, you can come in and credit your group (Texas group code: UTEX and A&M group code: 1234). Each will receive a limited edition t-shirt and enter for a chance to win tickets to the Thanksgiving Day game in College Station.

A devoted Longhorn myself, I must admit I will be rooting for my fellow Longhorn life-savers. But when it comes to saving lives – everyone wins, especially the patients whose lives were saved!

Who will you be rooting for?

At The Blood Center, we are always talking about the ways generous individuals help save the lives of complete strangers. This month we celebrate a very special kind of giving – bone marrow donation, as November is National Marrow Awareness Month.

So we’re sharing this letter written by a recent marrow donor. If you haven’t joined the Be the Match Registry, maybe this letter will inspire you to register.

Letter from a Marrow Donor
by Nikhil Gheewala

I have been happy to be a regular blood donor for a few years, and thanks to Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center and the National Marrow Donor Registry, I also have had the privilege of taking part in a marrow donation. I have been told people have spent their whole lives on the registry without being called. I was given the opportunity only a few months after I joined the registry!

I got a call from Martha, the coordinator at The Blood Center, explaining that a boy with leukemia needed a marrow donation, and my initial screening suggested I could be a match. I agreed to go forward in the process and came in to The Blood Center, so Martha could explain the process, and so I could provide a blood sample to see how closely my blood matched the recipient’s. After a few weeks, Martha called again. My blood wasn’t perfect, but it was a good match, and we needed to schedule the donation.

I underwent a peripheral blood stem cell donation, which is different from the traditional process I had known of. Instead of having doctors insert a needle into my hip to extract blood cells, I could just sit in a chair for a few hours, just like an apheresis blood donation. The key to this process was a drug called Filgrastim, the same type of drug often given to marrow recipients! Filgrastim encouraged my marrow’s stem cells to replicate and to move out of my marrow into my bloodstream, where it could be collected through apheresis. Martha and I discussed some very rare side affects and I decided I wanted to go through with the donation. To protect his privacy, I didn’t know much about the boy with leukemia, but I knew that if I could help give him the chance to be healthy, it was worth the small risk.

How the Donation Process Worked

For four days preceding the donation, I went to the The Blood Center to receive injections of Filgrastim and give small blood samples to track my white blood cell count. It took about 5 to 10 minutes each day on my way to work. On the day of the donation, I met Martha at a nearby hospital. I had been to the hospital a couple of weeks earlier to meet the doctors overseeing the donation and fill out paperwork. Once I received my last injection and everything was set, I sat in the donation chair with tubes connected to both my arms.

From there on out, all I had to do was sit. Blood was pulled from my left arm, processed by the collection machine and returned to my right arm. To me, it was just like an apheresis donation, but with two arms instead of one. Every once in a while, I would ask for something to eat or drink, or for a TUMS to keep my blood calcium levels up. The donation process took longer than expected — 7 hours instead of 4 — so I got to watch Rice play in the College World Series on the TV attached to my chair. To be truthful, their loss to LSU was more painful than the donation.

At the end of the donation, I got bandages on both my arms, and after resting for a little while, I was on my way home. Meanwhile, Martha was on her way with my donation. I didn’t know it at the time, but my stem cells were going to Hungary! Some time after the donation, Martha informed me that the donation was a success and the little boy was living happily in Budapest. It’s such a wonderful feeling to know I was able to help a stranger defeat a horrible disease. If I ever have the chance, I will definitely do it again.

Photos are one of the best ways to tell a story.

Friends in Seconds: East End Chamber members speed network at Gulfgate Neighborhood Donor Center

See what I mean?

If you’re a donor or blood drive chairperson, you probably have photos waiting to be shared. Tell your blood drive story by uploading your event photos to our group photo-sharing page on Flickr.

View this quick 2-minute screencast to learn how.

It’s simple and fast to create a free accounton Flickr. After doing so, add your blood drive photos to your personal Flickr page. Then go to the Commit for Life group page. Click “Join this group” to become a member. Then click “Add photos.” Flickr will pull the photos from your personal Flickr page. Pick the ones you would like displayed on the CFL group page.

And there you go! Your own Commit for Life photo story should appear alongside those of other life-savers.

Questions? Just ask here in the comments section.

P.S. The Commit for Life group photo-sharing page is open for anyone (like you!) to share their photos. This is different from the The Blood Center’s own Flickr photo page where you can view photos taken by us as we visit different blood drives and other events.