There are 720 people who owe the members of the Langley High School Science Honor Society a debt of gratitude.
«Your 240 pints of blood affected 720 people,» said Rod Huebbers, executive vice president of INOVA Blood Donor Services. «As hokey as it sounds, someone is walking around today because you saved their life.»
On Friday, April 27, the Langley High School Science Honor Society held its seventh bi-annual blood drive in the Langley High School cafeteria. Thanks to a collaborative effort and an aggressive promotion campaign that had numerous Science Honor Society members posting signs and fliers throughout McLean and Great Falls in the weeks prior to the event, the drive collected 240 pints of blood and broke the existing INOVA Blood Donor Services record.
«You all broke the single-day record,» said Huebbers, addressing the students at a celebratory luncheon held at Langley last week. «You all have set the standard, and you have enthused us … you're the best practices and you've set the example, so we're going to start the INOVA Blood Challenge, and its going to be centered around Langley High School.»
According to Huebbers, one pint of blood can benefit three people — which is why he congratulated the Langley students for impacting the lives of 720 individuals.
«It's a triple-win,» said Huebbers. «It's really something positive for the kids because it's a way for them to help their community, and secondly the patients get a really great benefit, and it helps their families, and it also helps us — so everybody wins.»
JEANNE PACKHEISER, a human anatomy, physiology and oceanography teacher at Langley, has been the school staff sponsor for the Science Honor Society blood drives since they started three and a half years ago. Langley had been participating in the INOVA blood drives since 1996, but Packheiser said she was contacted by the principal's assistant Norma Jamsheed in 2004 because the drives «hadn't been done in a while.» Packheiser was happy to take on the role of sponsor and asked her Science Honor Society students if they were interested in rekindling the fall and spring INOVA blood drives at the school. Their answer was a resounding yes.
«Our first drive we got 99 pints and we wanted so badly to make it 100 — I was ready to go out and grab somebody off the street,» joked Packheiser.
However, it was not long before the Langley Science Honor Society members went well beyond their goal of 100 pints of blood. «Our next drive was 113, then 156, then 176 and then our goal was 200 — so when we found out that we had done 240, I literally cried.»
Two hundred eighty-nine people registered for the drive, but donors taking certain types of medication must sometimes be turned away for safety reasons.
«The students did a great job,» said Carolyn Bayless, the mobile office manager for INOVA Blood Services. «They've just been getting steadily larger — they keep breaking their own records.»
Packheiser said it was particularly gratifying to see the various members of the Langley community work together to have a successful drive. In addition to the 95 students who volunteered to help manage the day-long blood drive on April 27, Packheiser noted that the willingness of teachers and school faculty to excuse their students from class was also a key component in the success of the event.
According to her, about 90 percent of the blood donors were Langley students, but Packheiser said this year's drive saw an increase in the number of outside donors — a fact she attributed to the enthusiastic advertising tactics employed by the students throughout McLean and Great Falls.
«This year we had about 20 adults,» said Packheiser. «We reached out through the PTSA [Parent Teacher Student Association] and so we even had some students sitting there with their parents donating blood in the next chair. Next time we are hoping to get more of that.»