GREENVILLE, N.C. — North Carolina State University and East Carolina University will face off this week to see which school’s student body can donate the most blood.
Blood drives will be held all day at both schools from September 14-16 to boost community blood donations in a time of critical need. For a list of locations, click here.
This first-ever ENC Blood Bowl is hosted by community blood centers, The Blood Connection and both schools’ Student Government Associations.
“The drive is three days long and we are trying to see which campus can donate the most blood, regardless of size of the campuses,” said Allie Van Dyke, Marketing Manager at The Blood Connection. “All we need is more blood donors than the other school and that will deem the winner.”
The Blood Connection is the local blood provider for Vidant Health in Greenville and WakeMed Health, UNC Rex Healthcare, and about 30 other ENC hospitals. TBC also strives to help other communities when needed, especially during hurricane season.
“We are seeing units being exported to Louisiana to help with that right now,” said Van Dyke. “Their needs change really by the hour, depending on what their hospitals need, so we are trying to do everything that we can to give them what they need.”
After Hurricane Ida hit Louisiana, TBC has committed to supplement the blood supply there until they can get back on their feet. That means TBC needs to see even more donors each day, to have enough blood products to cover all needs. Blood Bowl blood donors will have a direct impact on their community and others.
“Blood donations can not die down, ever. No matter what is happening in the world,” explained Van Dyke. “Here at ECU, Vidant, they are a very large hospital system. They need blood products every single day to help patients. It’s not just COVID patients, to help other people that are coming into the ER or cancer patients, things like that.”
The public is invited on both campuses to donate blood. Blood donors will receive an exclusive Blood Bowl t-shirt and a $10 VISA card. The Blood Connection is offering COVID-19 antibody screening to all blood donors as well. The antibody screening will test each donor’s blood to see if it contains antibodies from the COVID-19 vaccine and/or antibodies from exposure to the COVID-19 virus.
“ECU is technically smaller and we understand that, but all we need is more blood donors. We don’t need to be a bigger campus and we don’t need more people, we just need more blood donors than NC State and I totally think that’s possible,” said Van Dyke. “People are really inspired to beat NC State. I absolutely understand and I know the Pirates can pull through.”