Jian Zhang Capstone

Abstract

The project that I chose for my capstone is the blood drive. As many of us know every year there are blood drives here at SLA. This year I decided to continue that and organize the blood drive in order to help the people in need. In order for the blood drive to be a success I must learn as much as I can about the blood drive and what the blood is used for. During this I learned that blood is not something that everyone can just give to someone. Only certain kinds of blood can be used on other kinds of blood types. A blood can only be used on people with A type blood, B can only be used for B type blood and so on. However there is one type of blood that anyone can use. That is the O type blood, O blood can be given to anyone since it is compatible with any blood type. During this process I also researched many things about advertising which was pretty interesting. There are many ways to attract the attention of the people. Persuade the people to do things they don't really need to. But overall I have learned many things about blood, the red cross and even parts of marketing.

Digital

This was taken during the drive as people are getting ready to donate blood. There were seniors like me, some sophomores and even the assistant principal himself.

In the waiting room we see a senior who has just finished donating blood and is now relaxing and enjoying a light snack.

Here we have two hard working SLA students helping out with the drive. They are in charge of helping people who have yet to sign up actually sign up. They did a very good job and helped many people sign up in order to donate.

This bag of blood may not seem like much, but it will go and help out many people out there.

It may go to operations, transfusions, treating certain blood problems and many others.

(maybe vampires too)

Last but not least is a view from someone who is donating blood, aka myself.

It is quite a sight laying down and watching your blood being slowly drained out of you.

But this blood may save many lives, just the idea alone is worth it.

Bibliography

"Latest News." ​American Red Cross​. Web. 29 Jan. 2015. <​http://www.redcross.org​>. My project is to run a successful blood drive, know that I need someone who actually have the certification and the equipment to do so. When thinking of saving people and helping people in need, red cross was the first group that comes to mind. Not only do they save lives, they also do many other things to help people in need. So I knew I had to have them do the drive, as luck would have it, it seems that the previous person who did the drive also used red cross. This makes red cross the perfect group to colab with to do the blood drive.

"Share Your Power ­ Donate Blood." ​Share Your Power ­ Donate Blood​. Web. 29 Jan. 2015. <​http://www.oneblood.org/​>. In order to run a blood drive, I needed to know about blood first. All I know is that blood comes in different types O, A, AB etc. However there are many other things I didn’t know. One of which is that there is also O­ blood that can be used for anyone since the body will not reject it. This website gave me the information I needed to know about blood in nice short videos that is easy to understand.

"New Health Guide." ​Blood Type Chart​. Web. 29 Jan. 2015. <​http://www.newhealthguide.org/Blood­Type­Chart.html​>. After finding out about how there is O­ blood that can be used on anyone, I decided to do some light research on how rare each blood type is. And of course the best type of blood, O­, is also one of the rarer blood type. However O+ will also work for many different blood types with the only downside being O blood type people can only take blood from other O blood people. THe good news is that 38.5% of the population has O type blood.

"Am I Eligible?" ​Am I Eligible?​ Web. 29 Jan. 2015. <​http://www.bloodcenters.org/blood­donation/am­i­eligible/​>. I need to understand who and what do they need to donate blood to the Red Cross. Since I have donated before I do know that you need to be of age to donate or if you are under 16 you will need parent permission. Also blood sugar, pressure and such are also something that needs to be checked before one can donate blood. So this website was able to help me understand more about the requirements of donation. With that I can make much better announcement when it comes to telling people about the drive.

"How to Increase Red Blood Cells | MD­Health.com." ​How to Increase Red Blood Cells | MD­Health.com​. Web. 30 Jan. 2015. <​http://www.md­health.com/How­To­Increase­Red­Blood­Cells.html​>. Blood is not only important to people who gets in accidents, it is important for everyone. That is why we generally prefer to keep them inside our body most of the time. So to use something to get blood out of us, when it should stay inside, would cause some problems for the donor. So in order to keep the donor alive as well so they can donate again later, there needs a way to give them a quick boost. Things such as nuts contains a good amount of iron and can help the body to create more blood.

"Blood Transfusion." ​Why It's Done​. Web. 30 Jan. 2015. <​http://www.mayoclinic.org/tests­procedures/blood­transfusion/basics/why­its­done/prc­20021 256​>. With the blood that we will be getting from the blood drive, it can help many people. Blood transfusions isn’t only for people who lost lots of blood, people with certain illness also needs blood. There also also people with problematic blood and needs transfusions to keep their bodies working as well. Then there are some people who don’t really need the blood, but the plasma within the blood. However since plasma is in the blood so actual blood will be needed anyways. So blood is used in many way to keep people from being sick, anemic and most importantly dying.

"The Needle Phobia Page ­ Fear of Needles and Needle Procedures." ​The Needle Phobia Page ­ Fear of Needles and Needle Procedures​. Web. 30 Jan. 2015. <​http://www.needlephobia.com/​>. In order to extract blood from the donors a certain tool is required. Yes there is the blood bags and stuff but the thing that actually goes in and gets the blood out is the needle. However there are people who are deathly afraid of needles so much so that there is a word for it. Trypanophobia is the fear of needles, and surprisingly 20% of all the worlds population have this. That means 2/10 potential donors won’t even bother just because there is a sharp pointy stick that have to poke them. So this website gives some of the reasons why people are afraid of it and with some luck a way or two to get around that.

Web. 30 Jan. 2015. <​http://hr.fiu.edu/index.php?name=reward_recognition​>. To me, the reason for giving blood is one it helps people and two it also makes me feel happy knowing that someone out there is alive because I give out some blood. But of course no one really knows what happened to your blood. It may just be sitting on a shelf for weeks without ever being bothered with. So can we make people who donate feel that feeling without showing them what the actual blood is doing? The plan is to give them a small reward such as a sticker. Even though the sticker isn’t really anything big, just the act of getting something should make the donor feel that “I made a difference and this sticker shows it” kind of feeling. This website explores the idea of giving and how and why it works.

"Donate Blood." ​How to Organize a Blood Drive​. Web. 30 Jan. 2015. <​http://www.communitybloodservices.org/db_organizedrive.php​>. One can never have enough backups when it comes to doing something. Since my project is running a blood drive, I want red cross to do it since I very much trust them. However they may not always be able to do so. So having a backup in this case is very important just in case red cross is unable to do so. As I was search around I found that while red cross is the biggest when it comes to blood drives and stuff, they were not the only ones. Most places and hospital are able to host blood drives since they have the equipment as well as the requirements to do so. This website just shows an alternate way to a blood drive just in case red cross couldn’t make it.