As the end of the school year approaches, students across the school are rushing to complete any open assignments. With the clock ticking, students in the National Honors Society (NHS) have one more goal left: finishing their service projects.
NHS service projects are a big deal. Starting back in November, students form groups or work by themselves to do something to help the community. These projects include anything from park clean-ups to public events. The main criteria is that the event must touch, move, or inspire people.
This year, one great example of a service project was Isabella Oliveira’s project: a blood drive. On Friday, April 29th, the American Red Cross (ARC) came to Malden High to collect blood from willing students.
Oliveira had been actively working on this since late December, although she decided on this project in the months prior. “I’ve had various friends who have needed blood transfusions,” she noted as her inspiration for this project. “It was a very easy and important way that students could have an impact on people outside of school.”
After connecting with ARC representatives back in January, she communicated with the school and the association to host the blood drive in the gallery. The hardest part, though, was being the “middle man” between the ARC and school administration.
As the date rapidly approached, though, there was one issue: there was a double booking. “I reserved the gallery in late February, but I found out someone else rebooked it so we had to move last-minute into the gym.” A silver lining would appear, though, as the gymnasium would allow her more space to set up the event with.
The next step was creating sign-ups. Students donating blood were able to either register online via a student portal, or simply have a walk-in booking. Anyone under the age of 18 had to get a permission slip signed by parents in advance, but the rest of the process was fairly simple.
Her one main worry was that “not enough people would sign up,” but the opposite was proven true as she had to expand the sign up limit twice. There was not even time nor space for Oliveira to donate blood herself, and ended up going separately to donate. “It was chaotic,” Oliveira pushed, “but I don’t think there was anything I would have done to change it.”
Even though the event has since passed, Oliveira still pressed the importance of donating blood. Any student who missed the donation day can register with the ARC at https://www.redcross.org/give-blood.html.
Oliveira’s intention with this event was to stress the importance of donating blood. Her advice to anyone creating a large project such as hers is that “every single detail matters. You can’t listen or communicate too much, there’s no such thing.”
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