President Wolk welcomes Red Cross into home

Ashley Callan / Castleton Spartan
 
Senior Kim French smiles for the camera while she donates blood in Preident Wolk's
house. Behind her, a donor raises her arm to get the blood flowing back into her body.

On Tuesday, Dec. 1, the Gift-of Life Marathon Blood Drive was held at Castleton University at President Dave Wolk’s house.

The blood drive was a part of Giving Tuesday: an event that lets the community give back during the holiday season. Giving Tuesday also featured other ways of giving back such as bake sales and other donations.

Castleton’s community donated a total of 135 pints of blood to the Red Cross. Students had different reasons for donating and giving back during this holiday season.

“I give blood because I am so fortunate to live in a place that has this opportunity. There are many people in this world that are in desperate need for such a simple thing as blood. I am physically able to donate and make a contribution to help someone else. If every person acknowledged their privilege and gave to those in need, we would have more blood than demand. It is important for me to appreciate my blessings and do what I can to be a blessing to someone else,” said Junior Kayla Zsido.

Junior Breannon Meuse also used the gift of helping people to make a difference.

“I donated because I know I can help someone by giving them something that I have enough of which some people don’t. I donated because I want to help people,” she said.

Other students on campus lent a helping hand on Giving Tuesday and shared their experiences.

“I am the secretary for SGA and was asked to participate, and I love doing community service because no matter how much you do you are still helping someone and at the end of the day that’s all we can ever ask for, it had a huge effect on me,” said Freshman Matt Gay.

SGA played a huge role in giving Tuesday, including helping out at the President’s house where the blood drive was happening.

“We set up a table right in front of the president’s house. So when people walked in they saw an SGA representative or volunteer and could ask what was going on. So they were collecting coats, clothes, boots, and food. We also had a few money donations that we contributed to the Habit and Rotaract clubs. We had the stickers we gave out so if people gave blood they got stickers,” said senior Emma Faucher who helped organize the day.

Faucher continued to describe how this day affected her.

“Overall I think the day had a large effect on me. There was a lot of planning that went into it and behind the scenes stuff and I was definitely super stressed leading up to it. I feel like every time you plan an event like this you’re nervous like is it going to be successful or not. At the end of the day when we were counting everything I saw the numbers were up to 3,000 I had tears in my eyes. I was so happy that the students got together and made it happen,” she said. 

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