Students come out and donate part of themselves

Hundreds gathered to give blood and bone marrow donations in the College Center's large conference room March 23-24.

In the end, 717 potential lives were saved thanks to the generosity of 243 helpful students.

Fullerton managed to save 588 lives with blood alone, which would have been a decrease compared to last October's record breaking 618 saved lives. Luckily, the addition of bone marrow donations to this semester's event increased this year's number of lives saved by adding 129 potential matches.

"I felt the turnout was great considering we had so many events going on at the same time, including the rally," said Peter Cornett, associated student president . "Our goal was to meet last semester's huge record but I think we did a fantastic job."

Heading the event was Associated Student Vice President Garry Suharli but all associated members helped throughout.

Cornett gave credit to Suharli for originally thinking bone marrow donations would work well in this semester's event.

"We got information from the Red Cross," Cornett said. "They looked into it and found that students could sign up in the registry for bone marrow transfusion."

Although it was the first time Fullerton tried the bone marrow transfusions, the outcome will save many lives in the future.

All donors must meet certain requirements in order to participate in the blood drive. Donors must be at least 18 years old as well as weigh a minimum of 110 lbs. In addition, donors must not have traveled to places with high malaria activity in the past few months and also must not be taking prescribed antibiotics at the time of donation.

With this semester's successful blood drive, Cornett credited "the willingness of the students to donate and participate in all of the events" for another great showing on campus.

For more information on donating blood, visit the American Red Cross Web site.