Thursday, November 5th, Pinole Valley joined together with the Red Cross and hosted a blood drive. I am glad to say it was a success! We had multiple people who came and donated blood. I was able to interview a few people on their thoughts, experiences, and motivations.

We had a couple of first-timers. One of the first-timers is a student from Pinole Valley, Victoria Rynning. Victoria told me she was finally of age to donate. This was a perfect opportunity to help others in which she enjoys doing. I asked Victoria why it was important to her. Victoria replied, “I think a lot of people are in need and a lot of people don’t take this seriously. I have had family members who have health problems who need help like this and I can finally do something to help.”

Another one of our first-timers is Sophia Cabrera. Sophia was a bit nervous a

t first but after, she was glad she did it. She said this was important to her. “A lot of my family members are sick and they need blood transfusions sometimes. I am able to help them and help this community.”

Michael Saavedra, a student from Pinole Valley was a second-timer. Although Michael was nervous because of the risk of Covid-19, he still showed up and decided to donate. I asked motivated them, Michael replied, “In my perspective, we need to provide blood, and helping others is important, plus I get to find out my blood type.”

Lastly, we have Kathy. Kathy is a community member who decided to donate. I asked Kathy why this was important, Kathy replied, “There might be a time when I need blood and it’s important we have people who donate, we can save lives.”

This was my first time helping out for the blood drive and I’m glad I did it. Although I wasn’t able to donate, I helped with setting things up and getting people ready. I was able to talk to a few of the donors and they were all nice people. It brought me hope, with everything going on in the world, people came and did a good deed. I do plan on helping again and hopefully, we can get more people to donate. It was great to see multiple people come together and donate. They are all different people but they all had one thing in common, they knew they could save lives. Thank you to everyone who donated. You are all amazing!