By the end of the day Thursday, organizers of the sixth-annual blood drive at St. Joseph’s Academy had hoped to have 150 candidates and top last year’s mark of 100 whole units of blood donated. By the steady stream of students, parents and faculty coming through, achieving those goals the goal was met and exceeded.

Each year, St. John’s Mercy Medical Center in Creve Coeur goes on a 25-school swing through the St. Louis region. Teen donors got power blue T-shirts with the names of all participating schools on the back.

Gazing at a room full of donors in the school’s expansive gymnasium, Cheryl Barkhurst pronounced this event a big success. This mother of three from St.Clair, MO was keeping a close eye on the count. “We have competition in collecting blood.” The American Red Cross is one of those. “That’s very good for the donors who expect good service and conditions.”

Mothers from St. Joe’s brought freshly baked cookies while television monitors were playing, helping the girls keep their minds off the needles used to collect their blood.

Senior Kate Ruppe, starter on the basketball team, stepped up. “This is the first time I’ve donated, and obviously, there is no reason why I haven’t before. I was a little scared, a little antsy just because I’d never done this before,” she said.

Giving was fine for junior Marissa Kramer. “It certainly is a good cause, and I figured why not donate? After all, I’ve got plenty to spare.”

Monica Macheca, junior, was another first-time donor.”I was a bit uncomfortable at first and nervous when I saw that needle. But everyone made me feel so comfortable, and everyone was being brave about doing this,” she said.

St. Joe’s chemistry and physics teacher Katie Williams was the event organizer. “We had a steady stream. I feel like we are going to meet our goal. We really couldn’t push the participation until school was back in (from the holiday break) so we didn’t have a lot of time to promote the event, and we had exams too,” said Williams.