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Screening areas, donor chairs, and nurses filled Clausen Hall on Dec. 12 as Inova held its annual blood drive at AHS.

“The leadership committee has planned this for two or three weeks,” junior Olivia Franjie said.

“I’m pretty excited; I enjoy the sight of blood,” senior Glenda Sanchez said.

The whole process is relatively quick and efficient. However, the nurses make sure to give the donors a couple minutes rest before returning to class.

“You come in and fill out a form about your medical history and then you go to a screening where they prick your finger to make sure all of your blood levels are healthy,” Franjie said. “Then they lay you down and take your blood. It takes about ten minutes and then they give you about 15 minutes to rest and get sustenance before you’re allowed to leave.”

“He said it was going to be a short pinch, but it was a long pinch!” senior Sam Kamara said. “Other than that it was fine.”

“It kind of stung a little bit when they put the needle in my arm,” senior Robel Solomon said.

The majority of the donated blood is given to people who have cancer, blood diseases, or have recently undergone surgery.

“The best part is knowing I saved three lives,” Franjie said.

“I saved the lives of three lucky chaps today,” sophomore Michael Sgrecci said.

“We actually do blood drives every day of the year. We have four or five teams and we can do up to five drives a day,” Inova Mobiles Team Leader Corina Fuentes said.

Although all students have had they’re blood taken before for annual physicals or other reasons, this was the first time donating blood for many of the students.

“I was afraid blood would start spewing out when they took out the needle,” Sgrecci said.

Overall, the drive was deemed a success, as the leadership committee received a lot of positive feedback on how well-organized everything was.

“Everything has been steady, people have been coming in at their correct times. It’s been pretty organized,” Fuentes said.

“It was really successful,” Franjie said. “We had over 170 people sign up and we hope we can get more next year.”

Photos by Allison Ilgan