Did you know that every two seconds someone in the U.S. needs blood? 

About 41,000 units of blood are used daily with over five million people each year needing blood transfusions throughout the U.S. A way for people to be able to receive the blood transfusions that they need, others in the community must be generous enough to host blood drives in order to help out the people in need.

Hoover High School sponsored a blood drive on Thursday hosted by Huntington Hospital. Every student who donated a pint of blood at the drive received a Baskin Robbins gift card for a pint of ice cream.

“I want to donate blood because it helps a lot of people and it’s a lot of peoples lifelines so they rely on it and I feel very thankful that I have the opportunity to donate,” Liana Shirvanian, a junior, said.

Donating blood shows students how an act of giving can really make a difference in another person’s life. 

Ida Diaz, a marketing and recruitment worker at Huntington Hospital speaks about the importance of blood donations.

“I think it’s definitely important to educate the youth about the importance of donating blood,” said Ida Diaz, a marketing and recruitment worker at Huntington Hospital. “So that you can know about it and continue to do it throughout your life and instill it in your family or friends because you can never know who needs blood.

“So definitely it’s important for those of us that are healthy, not everyone is a good candidate to donate blood, but if you’re healthy, you can donate blood, in order to help someone else, save their life, improve their health and then your own body is gonna replenish your red cells.”

A body’s red cells take about four to six weeks to be completely replaced but the plasma from the donation is restored within 24 hours. 

An average human’s body contains about eight to ten pints of blood and in a day these pints around the body pump no less than 2000 times. 

When donors give 1 pint of blood, the patients that receive this either use the entire pint or just the specific components of the blood that are needed to treat their particular condition. 

This approach, which is called blood component therapy, lets several patients benefit from one pint of donated blood.

Blood is one of the most essential fluids in our body that helps our bodies function smoothly. Giving blood is a quick and easy way to help others in need and a way to take care of the health needs in our community. 

According to the American Red Cross, just one pint of blood can save up to three lives.