Hillside Grade School Hosts Annual Blood Drive

As most of the Hillside Grade School students filed out of the building Tuesday afternoon, the first group of sixth graders started their shift as “Little Doctors” for the school’s annual blood drive conducted by New York Blood Center representatives.

This year, 38 sixth graders clad in lab coats worked in hourly shifts from 3-8 pm as donors took 45 minutes out of their day to give blood that will be distributed to hospitals all over Nassau, Suffolk and Queens.  Some of the students’ duties included greeting donors inside the auditorium where the drive took place and escorting them to blood-testing stations.

Their primary function, however, was to keep an eye on young children while their parents gave blood.  Equipped with a myriad of card and board games, they were more than up to the challenge.

“‘Little Doctors’ is a big draw,” according to 29-year veteran phlebotomist Janice Baxter, who has noticed that attendance for school blood drives has seemingly doubled since the program’s inception in 1996.

“It is run very efficiently,” noted second year donor Danny Lynch, who has a daughter in third grade at Hillside. “She gets a kick out of coming back here,” he added as his daughter played with sixth grade volunteers in the background.

“They are a wonderful group,” said Hillside teacher Kathy Springer, who has been in charge of supervising the “Little Doctors” since the school’s first blood drive five years ago. “The important thing is they know that when they are 16,” she continued, “they can start giving blood.”

Thanks to corresponding lessons in class and information provided by the New York Blood Center, that’s not all the young helpers know.

“What percent of the general population is asked to donate blood?” Springer asked a nearby group of miniature medical students.

“Two percent!” one exclaimed without hesitation.

“We are hoping to raise that number,” Springer stated determinately.

In past years when the school’s spring concert was held before the drive, Springer would orchestrate a skit revolving around blood donations that the third, fifth and sixth graders would act out in front of the audience.  The goal of the skit was to promote the upcoming drive, but this year plenty of awareness was raised through other means.

“The PTA made phone calls, we advertised in local papers, sent flyers home with the children and sent letters with detachable confirmation slips,” said Principal Karen Olynk. “We also posted the event on the electronic billboard in front of the New Hyde Park Village Hall.”

For their efforts, the school seemed to get the job done.  Almost 40 people made donation appointments and Olynk noted that walk-ins commonly occur as well.

“Each of the four schools in the New Hyde Park-Garden City Park Union Free School District holds an annual drive,” Olynk mentioned, “but we try to space them apart so donors have the opportunity to give blood more than once.”