By Stephanie Starks | Staff Writer
Baylor students celebrated homecoming by giving blood — and taking a few swings at Iowa State’s mascot.
Baylor Health Services and Carter BloodCare partnered Tuesday through Thursday for a blood drive on Third Street in front of Moody Memorial Library, giving students an opportunity to support patients in need amid homecoming week festivities.
Over the past two years, Baylor donors have donated more than 900 pints of blood to Carter BloodCare.
According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, a single pint of blood can save up to three lives. This blood goes to patients needing clotting factors, plasma-based treatments or those in trauma or surgical care.
Baylor Health Services’ outreach leadership planned something extra for what it called the first homecoming blood drive. Uriah Yarbrough, outreach coordinator for Baylor Health Services, said the idea came after last year’s team considered holding a blood drive during homecoming but instead scheduled one during Revivalry week.
“I saw that there were a lot of events around homecoming,” Yarbrough said. “I was like, ‘Oh, this is amazing,’ and then I was just like, ‘Why not?’ I reached out to the Homecoming Council Committee, and they were like, ‘OK.'”
For homecoming, everyone who donated a pint of blood got to take a swing at a piñata version of Cy the Cardinal, Iowa State’s mascot. Yarbrough said the idea was inspired by online videos of Indy and Belle, Baylor’s live bear mascots, devouring mascots before a football game.
Yarbrough said he wanted to move away from digital engagement and create a more interactive experience for students. The idea of a large piñata, he said, offered a fun, engaging way to draw students in.
For Yarbrough, the blood drive’s significance extended beyond the homecoming festivities. He said donating blood allows students to help people they may never meet.
“There is nothing that I can think of that is more Christ-like,” Yarbrough said. “The students who give their blood do not even know who it goes to. These students are saving lives by doing that. Oh man, it’s beautiful.”
Lilia Gonzalez, director of nurses for Baylor Health Services, said that blood drives “create a sense of community within the students.”
“They are dedicated to their studies at Baylor, but they are also dedicated to Baylor,” she said. “What Baylor stands for, the mission and the vision of Baylor, and just supporting the community in general.”
Gonzalez said Carter BloodCare shares Baylor’s commitment to serving people in need and encouraged students with questions to reach out to Health Services or blood drive staff.
When donors arrive at the blood drive buses, staff members guide them through the donation process and conduct screenings to determine whether they can safely donate.
“There are a lot of concerns with students [in the process of giving blood],” Gonzales said. “[Students] have a lot of times said ‘I’m anemic‘ and that’s OK. They test for [anemia] right there.”
St. Louis sophomore Sophia Oldani, a committee member of the Student Health Advisory Council, said SHAC works with Health Services to “be a bridge between students and the health center.”
SHAC members and officers help facilitate communication between donors and medical staff by staffing the student booth in front of the Carter BloodCare buses and interacting with Baylor students and blood drive employees.
“Blood drives are super important,” Oldani said. “I think that donating blood is something that a lot of people can do. It just takes a little bit of time inside [a donor’s] day, but it is super important to get these [blood] donations for the people who need it.”
Homecoming brings the Baylor community together, and Oldani said donating blood is one way students can contribute to that sense of unity.
“Homecoming is all about unity and celebrating Baylor as a whole,” she said. “It is just a great time to come together in community and give blood, time and resources to people that need them. I think Baylor is just super genuine with all our people here.”
