1. Shelby Fleming
Ms.Tillery
18 March 2012
2nd Period
Senior Project Speech
A total of 30 million blood components are transfused each year in the United
States. More than thirty eight thousand blood donations are needed everyday. My name is
Shelby Fleming and my senior project was organizing and running the fall blood drive for
the school. For the past three years at Creekview High School I have taken the healthcare
science class. I have also taken interest in the healthcare profession since I was a young
child. The reason I chose this project is because every year I have been in the healthcare
science class, I have helped work in the school blood drive. I have enjoyed working in the
blood drive and took interest in it.
My product was a blood drive. I chose this product because it was something I
wanted to learn more about. I went through a long process to get to the day of the blood
drive. I started out talking to Mr. Peacock, the healthcare science teacher, who later
became my project facilitator, on the 2nd day of school about doing the blood drive, he
agreed and we agreed on the date for the blood drive, which was November 29th, 2011.
Mr. Peacock then contacted Life South and got it all set in stone. Afterwards, I met with
Mr. Peacock on several occasions about what was going to go into the project and what
was going to go on over the course of the months before the blood drive.
I then had to write several emails to staff at the school. The first set of emails I
had to write was to the administrators and teachers letting them know we would be

2. having the blood drive on November 29th. Another email I had to write was to the
coaches telling them that we would need the gym on November 29th to do the blood
drive. In addition to the other emails, I had to write one to the ROTC teachers asking
them if their classes could help take people who had given blood back to class. The last
email I had to write was to the janitor so he would know that we needed tables, chairs,
and trashcans on the day of the blood drive.
Next, I had to put together a sign up book so people could sign up to donate
blood. I also had to get copies made of sixteen year old permission forms for life south
and copies of tickets to go get students out of class on the day of the blood drive. The cost
of the copies was a bit high and more than I expected.
Then, I had to make information posters to hang up around the school to let
people know about the blood drive. I also had to let the school’s morning news know that
we would be signing people up for the blood drive during their lunch periods.
I later had to talk to Mr. Peacock’s healthcare science third year classes about
helping sign people up for the blood drive and about working the blood drive, I also had
to get Mr. Peacocks third year classes to get a paper signed from their teachers giving
them permission to miss classes on the day of the blood drive so that they could help
work it.
Afterwards, I had to get people signed up during their lunch period and get
permission slips back from sixteen year olds. I did this with the help of Mr. Peacock’s
healthcare science 3rd year classes. I also had to go to the fire department and warn them
that we might need EMS on the day of the blood drive. I had to call Life South and make
sure that they were still coming on November 29th but each time I called I never got an

3. answer. I then had to have Mr. Peacock call them because they would not call me back.
This was one of the problems I encountered during my project.
At that time, we were trying to get 350 people signed up to give blood. We ended
up getting 220 people signed up to give blood the week before thanksgiving break. The
week of thanksgiving break I spent a lot of time typing up the sign up book, making
tickets for blood donors, and organizing the tickets into time slots.
I then talked with Mr. Peacock’s healthcare science third year classes the day
before the blood drive about what they needed to wear and what was going to happen on
the day of the blood drive. I also collected money from Mr. Peacock’s healthcare science
third year classes for pizza for lunch for the day of the blood drive, so that we wouldn’t
have our workers leaving the gym for lunch.
My research paper for this project taught me the steps of giving blood and the
importance of it. The process to give blood is not that complicated you go through a few
simple steps and then your done. First you register and they get your name and address
and simple information about you, you then go to a station where they ask you a series of
questions and prick your finger to make sure it is safe for you to give blood. After, you
are sent to a chair where they put a tourniquet around your arm so they can find your
vein, they then clean your arm with iodine, after cleaning your arm with iodine they put
the needle in and fill up a little bag, and test tubes to test your blood. Next, they fill up a
pint of blood in the blood bag and it saves 3 lives, they then wrap your arm with
compression bandage that they advise you were for 8 hours. After you are done you go to
a table and drink juice and eat cookies for 15 minutes to make sure you will not be sick.
After that you are free to go about your day.

4. The morning of the blood drive I had to get to the school at 6:30 A.M. to help set
up for the blood drive. We had to go get barricades for the stairs to help life south set up.
At 8:00 A.M. Mr. Peacock’s healthcare science 3rd year classes started coming in and
getting their name tags for the day. At 8:30 A.M. Mr. Peacock’s classes started going and
getting students to donate blood, they then brought the students back to registration to
register to sign up to give blood. We got our first blood donation at 8:45 A.M. Life south
was making good progress. We didn’t have that much of a line for people to give blood
until about 12:30. At 12:30 Life South had to let some people have lunch so we started to
get a longer line. At about 1:30 we had a girl pass out from giving blood, she continued to
have problems and we had to call EMS. When EMS arrived, administrators were in the
gym and she was told that she needed to go to the hospital and she refused. This was one
of the big problems we encountered that day. Another problem we encountered were
people trying to skip classes and stay in the blood drive. We had to overcome this
problem by telling them they would get in school suspension if they stayed any longer.
Life south ran a little late and our last donor got finished at 3:45 P.M. I then had
to stay and help clean everything up. At 4:30 P.M. we finished cleaning everything up
and the gym was ready for basketball practice. Life south staff was very rude to me that
day; they didn’t want anything to do with me and kept asking me why I was taking
pictures. They didn’t realize this was my senior project. The life south coordinator was
very nice and seemed to understand what I was doing.
We ended up getting 235 units of blood but we only had 180 usable units of blood
from our blood drive.

5. I chose Mr. Peacock as my project facilitator because he does the blood drive
every year at the school and has a lot of experience with it. He was the only person I
would have known to talk to about my project. I learned much from this project. I learned
how much responsibility and time goes into planning a blood drive. I also learned how
stressful things can get when you have a strict timeline to follow. I would not go into the
blood drive profession because it is very stressful with planning and can get hectic at
times. I am going to pursue the medical field and major in pre-med in college.
I think this project was a great life experience. It has helped me grow up and
become more prepared for college. Everyday someone in the United States needs a blood
transfusion. Blood is always in a shortage and always in demand. If you ever get the
chance, please donate blood because you never know whose life you will be saving. It
might be your own. Thank you for your time. Are there any questions?