One person giving blood can save three lives. So, when 50 Edina High School students gathered in the Black Box to participate in the annual blood drive last Tuesday, 150 people may have gotten the blood they needed to survive.

For a student to donate blood, they must pass certain requirements. Firstly, the student must be 16 years or older and provide proof of age. Secondly, the student must pass health history checks and tests administered by nurses to ensure they are eligible to donate blood. Finally, the blood donation takes place, and after it’s over, students are offered snacks, wait for ten minutes, and then leave.

However, even with all these steps, it doesn’t take that long to go in and out.

Ethan Liao, a senior donating blood, claimed the process of checking in and drawing blood was very quick.

“I was a walk-in, so I came here completely unprepared,” Liao said. “It probably took a total of around 15 minutes to do everything, so it was pretty fast.”

Liao said he had some concerns going in about his health going into the drive; however, he thought the experience went really well.

“It was honestly not a lot of pain,” Liao said. “It went much better than I thought it would.”

Student Council began organizing the blood drive around a month ago. To advertise, they set up tables at lunch to campaign and made posters to hang up around the school.

Bobbi Simmons, a sophomore on the council, is on the blood drive committee.

“The goal is to help humans all around America,” Simmons said. “We’re hoping that everyone can donate.”

Another task that Student Council had to accomplish for the blood drive was connecting with the American Red Cross, EHS’ partnership for the drive. The Red Cross sent over nurses to get the blood from the students, and the organization dealt with the logistics of where the blood was going.

Nurse Kaleb Krupa was one of the Red Cross nurses sent to EHS to help with the drive. He said that blood drives help people in a variety of different ways.

“People who have cancer need platelets because they can’t clot on their own, or they need more blood to feel healthy again,” Krupa said. “Another way blood drives help is by donating red blood cells to sickle cell patients that have misformed red blood cells and need more of someone else’s correct-shaped blood cells to survive.”