For the first time a club on campus directly sponsors a Blood Source blood drive.
Once every semester, BloodSource sponsors a campus Blood Drive, and on March 12 and 13, the cultural group Latinos Unidos sponsored the blood drive here at ARC. “This is the first time we have ever had the name of a specific group on campus to help co-sponsor,” said Fran Koscheski, a nurse from the ARC Health Department.
BloodSource sent “Bloodmobiles,” which parked near the Campus Police station. The blood drive was staffed by volunteer pre-med and nursing students and was run by Blood Source employees.
The co-sponsors for this blood drive, Latinos Unidos, is a cultural group on campus that represents Latinos. They co-sponsored to promote ARCs entrance in a collegiate blood donor competition.
The Latinos Unidos Club has participated in the National Cesar Chavez Blood Drive Challenge for two years now, but this is the first time they have co-sponsored the blood drive itself. Last year, ARC came in 8th place in the challenge; just one rank below Sacramento City College and five below Sacramento State.
“The challenge itself is to promote and encourage Latino students and the Latino community to donate blood and, specifically, bone marrow,” said Liliana Mendoza, coordinator from the club.
The blood drive challenge is for the entire college. Every donor who mentions that their donation is in honor of Cesar Chavez helps ARC in the competition. “Our goal this semester is to push not just our club name, but also American River College, because we represent American River,” said Mendoza.
