Rachel Meeks is ValpoLife.com's #1StudentNWI representative at the Porter County Career and Technical Center. For her first story, Rachel wrote about a blood drive held by the health occupations class to kick off the school year. Ideas in Motion Media is looking to hire one student at every school in Northwest Indiana to share the good news at their school. If interested, send an introductory email to share@nwindianalife.com.
Now that the school year is back in full swing, the Porter County Career and Technical Center is fired up for another year. The Health Occupations class got into the groove on Friday by hosting a blood drive.
More than 60 volunteers showed up to help out the cause. Among these volunteers was Jacob Marvel, a senior from Morgan Township.
"It feels good to know that something so simple can help save so many lives," Marvel said.
Others commonly agreed with Marvel's response. Tommy Akins said that the free pint of ice cream is also a great incentive.
The Career Center hosts four blood drives a year, with about 240 volunteers taking part through the year. Every pint of blood saves three lives, which means that just from these four drives alone, volunteers and students are helping save 720 lives.
But not only is this saving lives, it is also preparing students for the medical field. Belle Rochon, from Chesterton, said that she learned many helpful tips when preparing for the drive.
"We learned how to respond if someone passes out so that we can help," she said. "We learned that you are supposed to elevate feet and pump fluids into their arm." Rochon also said that she encourages people to help out at the blood drives because blood is needed everywhere and events like this bring students from all of Porter County together to help out for a greater cause.
Even though it is still early in the year, this goes to show that the Career Center doesn't let any grass grow under its feet. The blood drive collects blood to help ensure a future for some, but the Career Center prepares students for a future by sending them down the right path and encouraging them to branch out into the community to help out a good cause. You won't find many opportunities like this in which complete strangers from the community and students from all eight schools in Porter County have the opportunity to work together and take something as small as a blood drive and turn it into something as large as saving more than 700 lives.