Donate blood at WHS, help save a life

WALLACE — Wallace High School will be doing their part to save lives on Feb. 7 by hosting their second blood drive of the current school year.

The school has become very active in their community for many years now, from holding several events in effort to stimulate local business as best as they can, to hosting at least three different blood drives each year.

Although the blood drive is a Wallace Jr./Sr. High School event, it is open to the community.

“The Wallace High School has three blood drives a school year, and we are partners with the Inland Northwest Blood Center who set the dates for our blood drives, which are set roughly three months apart so the people who donated blood have enough time to gain more blood to donate again,” WHS student body president Zayne Hunter said. “We usually have one in November, February and then one in May.”

The year 2017 was a big for blood donation in Shoshone County. Rob Balison, a territory manager for the Inland Northwest Blood Center, detailed just how impressive the year was for the area and how big of an impact they were able to make during an interview late last year.

“In 2017, 471 units of blood were selflessly given in Shoshone County, positively impacting up to 1,413 lives,” Balison said. “It is only with the support from the communities like the ones found within Shoshone County that we are able to provide these lifesaving blood products to those in need, as there is no substitute for human blood.”

Wallace High School’s three drives were responsible for 20 percent of those donations.

“We always have good student participation, as well as the community, but we would love to have more community members come in and donate towards a great cause,” Hunter said. “We had right around 39 people signed up to donate at our November blood drive, and are hoping to get that number up to 50 people. So please take the time to donate, and save a life.”

The Wallace High School blood drive will be Wednesday, Feb. 7, from 9:30 a.m. through 3 p.m.

To set up an appointment, visit inbcsaves.org or call 800-423-0151.