Every fall, the Big Red Bus comes to Sunlake to draw blood from students 16 or older who are willing to donate. One student, senior Eliana Barboza, received the opportunity to help out by volunteering to help students get back to class after having their blood drawn. About her experience, she recounted “…for National Honor Society, we run a blood drive around 2-3 times a year at Sunlake so that kids can donate their red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. Any of the three could save a life and if you donate you also usually receive a shirt or a blanket and get fed before and after (primarily to help prevent the fainting). I’ve worked at the blood drive for two years which consisted of volunteering at the signup table or as a runner day of.” Eliana goes on to explain that she “…worked as both. So for the sign-up up we would sit or ask around to see who wanted to join, and if they did we would have them choose a time slot, hand them a form to get signed, and hand them a pass for the day of. Volunteering the day of (which was September 15th) me my friend Allyson Holtz went during 4th period to stay outside and make sure people who were leaving the drive didn’t faint on their way back to class. We sat outside on the side of the gym for an hour watching people walk by. Personally, I thought it was a funny experience because not only were we dying of the heat but we also probably looked suspicious eyeing people walk by. We joked about how it made us look like vampires because we had to scan people’s arms to see if they had it wrapped to prevent bleeding.” When asked if she would volunteer at this event again, she said “…I would definitely do it again because it gave me experience with practicing my communication skills and I learned about the lab processing of the blood (plus the volunteer hours). In the future, I want to work either as a hospital owner or I want to specialize in neurology so I want to have many opportunities to work with people and have hands-on experience with emergency scenarios so I can pick up being a fast thinker when the time comes.” Hopefully she gets the opportunity to volunteer at the next blood drive before she graduates, and hopefully more students will be willing to give blood to save lives!