St. Joe and CBC Battle It Out In Seventh Annual Blood Drive For Mercy Hospital

This year, the St. Joseph’s Academy annual blood drive was all about the competition. The recipient, the blood bank at Mercy Hospital in Creve Coeur matched the Angels with the Cadets of CBC-winner take all.

For real, there is an actual Golden Vampire award, going to the school with the highest donor base, per capita. St. Joe girls did not have to worry that CBC has a bigger enrollment and a potentially bigger donor base.

A total of 159 donors gave 116 pints of blood, a school record.

 Valerie Siemer, incoming president of the St. Joe Mother’s Club was proud to announce that all of the 140 scheduled slots were filled prior to opening the doors. It will all come down to how many of the donors will actually qualify for the event.

Some of the girls traveled outside the U.S. this past summer, including Nicaragua and have to wait 12 months before their blood can be collected.

St. Joe’s National Honor Society provided the women power to accomplish many of the tasks surround the day,

Katie Williams, who teaches physical science to freshmen and juniors was faculty coordinator for the drive.

“We get a lot of good help from Mercy. Trisha Crenshaw is a guidance counselor at CBC and we worked together to make this drive successful,” said Williams.

Gazing around the gymnasium prior to the lunch hour, she was right. Parents, faculty, students and staff were steadily flowing into the room to make their donations.

Organizers even bribed the donors with Domino’s pizza to add extra incentives. The pizzas were donated by the moms’ club.

Williams proudly displayed a donors’ tee shirt, with Donors Rock on the frontside and the names of all the local high schools in the program on the back. The girls liked the shirts.

Cheryl Barkhurst of Mercy and her donors team thought of the school competition idea. “That’s making it more fun and we have more donors, so its working well,” said Barkhurst. “Things are calm but steady. We like it that way,” said the Mercy director.

This is how it looked on donor day 2012 at St. Joseph’s Academy in Frontenac.