GR wins blood drive challenge

For the third year in a row, Green River High School is celebrating being the reigning champions of the annual blood drive challenge with Rock Springs High School. 

"We're really happy to keep the trophy," Marisa DeClercq, the supervisor of the Green River High School Student Council, said. 

This year Green River donated 317 pints of blood, narrowly beating out Rock Springs's donation of 311 pints.

"I really wasn't sure if we were going to win, just because I know Rock Springs works as hard as we do," DeClercq said. "But it's really fun to win this one, just because it's the most fair competition I think we have."

Both high schools are given the exact same resources for the blood drive, according to DeClercq. They each have two days with the same time slots, number of appointments available, and number of nurses. This keeps the competition close and nerve-wracking, but even more exciting to win. 

That excitement could be felt when the winner was announced between the Green River vs. Rock Springs girls and boys varsity basketball games last Thursday. 

"The jumps for joy were real," DeClercq said. "It's also really fun when we win in our own court when more people are there from Green River. There was excitement everywhere." 

This year's blood drive brought in new highs as far as the number of donations. Green River's donation of 317 pints beat last year's donation of 295 pints. While most donations collect one pint of blood, some "double red" donations count toward two pints, meaning about 300 people donated in Green River this year, including community members and high school students. 

"I think this was the most students we've ever had donate, which was really cool to see," DeClercq explained. "All in all, it was a really good turnout."

Part of the reason the high schools could do even more donations this year was because Vitalant was able to provide even more nurses than usual to help run the blood drives, which allowed the schools to sign up even more donors, according to DeClercq. 

"In total it was 628 pints between both of our communities, which can save close to 1,800 lives, which is just crazy," DeClercq said. 

Blood donations, while always important, are even more crucial than normal right now. 

"We're still in a blood shortage from COVID," DeClercq explained. "And until we get these massive donations, it's really not going to improve, because blood is the only thing that we can't make in a lab. It has to come from human donation."

The annual blood drive challenge, while providing fun competition, also provides a strong sense of unity in the community, which is the most important thing.

"I think in all it's truly the fact that we come together to help such a good cause," DeClercq said. "I think the kids see the importance of it and it definitely brings awareness to it as well. And a lot of people come out for it, which is really fun to see."

And when it comes to this cause, "nobody does it like we do," according to DeClercq. 

While other schools around Wyoming host blood drives, none of them do it on quite the same level as Green River and Rock Springs with the competition and the connection to the basketball games. This is the reason whichever school wins the local challenge also typically ends up being the winner for the whole state of Wyoming. 

Sandy Thomas, the main Vitalant coordinator for Sweetwater County, told DeClercq that nowhere else around the state is on the same level or matching the same numbers. 

DeClercq and Thomas agreed - "Nobody does it better than Sweetwater County."