UD finishes a close second in CAA Blood Challenge

Head Football Coach K.C. Keeler gets moral support during his CAA Blood Challenge donation from Cheerleading Team members (from left) Lauren Crawford, Heather Records, Jessica Johnson, Keli Hefele and Bryan Hansen.

3:16 p.m., Dec. 8, 2006--The University of Delaware finished second in the 2006 Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) “Have a Heart” Blood Challenge, with 702 actual donors, compared to first-place Drexel University's 713 actual donors.

UD, which had won the first four CAA Blood Challenges, had 911 registered donors, compared to 885 registered donors for Drexel University.

The 2006 CAA “Have a Heart” Blood Challenge also shattered all previous records with 3,215 actual donors and 3,287 productive units of blood collected. The University of Delaware and Drexel accounted for nearly half the number of actual donors in this year's Blood Challenge.

“We are proud that so many of our students, staff and faculty contributed,” UD President David P. Roselle said. “The real winners in this competition are the many people who will benefit from the blood that was collected. We also appreciate the efforts of all the CAA institutions who participated in this year's blood drive.”

Blood Bank of Delmarva (BBD) President and CEO Robert L. Travis said that with the holiday season right around the corner the units of blood collected during the largest and most successful blood drive that BBD has ever experienced will benefit the hospital patients who rely on lifesaving blood transfusions.

“With your blood drive occurring so close to Thanksgiving, the blood collected on Nov. 15 will help ensure that there will be sufficient supplies for patients during the busy holiday season,” Travis said. “It could not have been accomplished with HOLA, Kappa Alpha Theta and the RSA helping to get the students out to support the drive. Thank you all for your participation. All of us at BBD are enthusiastic about the 2007 'Have a Heart' Blood Challenge.”

The 3,215 actual donors represents a 22 percent increase in the amount of blood collected during the 2005 Blood Challenge and is nearly triple the amount collected during the inaugural campaign in 2002.

During the five years that the CAA Blood Challenge has been in existence, 10,697 productive units of blood have been collected.

This year, Georgia State University finished third, with 299 donors, followed by Towson University (284), Hofstra University (237), Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of North Carolina Wilmington (168), College of William and Mary (161), George Mason University (117), Northeastern University (117) and James Madison University (105).

“The CAA Blood Challenge was once again a tremendous success, and we are proud to be associated with such a worthwhile and life-saving project,” CAA Commissioner Tom Yeager said. “The credit for that success goes to the many student-athletes, volunteers and staff members on each of our campuses who put in a great deal of effort promoting and running the event, as well as all of the people who took time to donate blood. To have tripled the number of donors over a five-year period is an amazing accomplishment.”

The CAA Blood Challenge was developed in 2002 by the conference presidents at Roselle's suggestion as a fun way to emphasize the critical importance of donating blood. Each CAA institution worked with its local blood service center and designated one day during the fall to conduct a campuswide blood drive. Student groups, faculty, staff and alumni were all encouraged to participate.

Article by Jerry Rhodes
Photo by Kathy F. Atkinson

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