The autumn volunteer blood drive passed its two-day donation target before the end of its first afternoon, with the regional blood service’s team calling MU’s turnout the strongest of their school visits this season.
The drive, organised by the volunteering society with the regional blood service, registered 118 eligible donors across two days against a target of 90. Organisers credited a new timed sign-up system for much of the increase: instead of queuing between classes, students booked ten-minute slots in advance.
“Last year people took one look at the queue and promised themselves they’d come back later,” said volunteering society coordinator Lukas Meier. “This year there was no queue to look at.”
First-time donors
Nearly half of this year’s donors were giving blood for the first time. The blood service’s staff ran short information sessions through the morning for students who wanted to understand the process before committing — or who simply wanted the biscuits, which staff confirmed is a legitimate entry point.
I’d been meaning to do it for two years. Booking a slot at 11:40 on a Tuesday somehow made it real.
Hana Yoshida, senior
Students who registered but could not donate this time — the most common reasons were recent illness and low iron — were given guidance on when they can next try. The spring drive is planned for after the winter break, and the society said the slot system is staying.
Why school drives matter to the region
The regional blood service’s outreach coordinator, visiting for the second day, said school drives have become a larger share of the service’s intake strategy — not for the volume of any single drive, but because donors who start young tend to continue. “A hundred and eighteen donors today is useful. A hundred and eighteen people who now know it takes forty minutes and doesn’t hurt much — that’s a decade of donations,” she said. The service left sign-up cards for its year-round donor register at the volunteering society’s stand.
The society also used the drive to test a quieter idea: a companion system, in which nervous first-time donors could book the slot directly after a friend’s and stay through both. Thirty pairs used it. “The form just asks one extra question,” Meier said. “It turned out to be the question a lot of people were waiting for.”
