Although student participation continues to be strong in Paly Key Club’s annual blood drive, Key Club hopes to generate even more student interest in future blood drives.

According to junior Key Club President Erika Ji, at least 60 donors donated blood, which correlates to about 60 pints of blood collected, at Friday’s blood drive.

“A majority [of the donors] were students,” Ji said, “but we had a few faculty members, parents, and adults.”

According to Ji, many students and members of the community came in hopes of donating blood but were not allowed to because they did not fulfill the necessary requirements.

Donors must weigh at least 110 pounds, be healthy, and have avoided traveling to certain countries with blood-related diseases, according to Ji. To make sure that donors fulfilled donation requirements, Key Club required them to fill out forms about their health histories and proceeded to “a confidential session with the doctors to check heart rate, blood pressure, and hemoglobin, or iron levels,” Ji said.

According to Ji, donors who were unsure about whether their blood was healthy enough to be donated could attach a sticker to their packet of withdrawn blood. Such donors could still undergo the donation routine, but doctors will not include stickered blood samples in later blood processing procedures.

Junior donor Tessa Goble was one of the student who donated blood on Friday. Goble was initially terrified of needles and donating blood, but she overcame her fear by believing that she was doing the right thing by giving back to the community. The idea of patients having blood available for use when they need it also helped convince her to donate blood.

“Knowing that people needed blood in the hospital,” Goble said, stating a reason why she became interested in donating blood. “It [donating blood] is a good thing to do.”

Both Key Club members and doctors from the Stanford Blood Center volunteered to make the blood drive a success. Prior to the event, Key Club members provided forms and instructions for students to sign up and donate blood. At the blood drive, volunteers split into different groups to guide donors to specific stations and make sure the donors did not pass out after a donation, which was a five to ten minute process.

Ji believes that this year’s blood drive went well and that the volunteers were more organized, compared to those of previous years.

However, Ji plans to incorporate more participants in next year’s blood drive.

“For next year, we want to do more advertising,” Ji said. “I think a lot of people are afraid to donate blood because they are afraid of needles and the pain.”

Ji believes donating blood is not as frightening as people might think, and wants to spread this message through future blood drives.