UD awarded 3rd ‘Have A Heart’ trophy

3:36 p.m., Feb. 8, 2005--Winning the Colonial Athletic Association’s annual blood drive is getting to be a habit for UD--a habit that helps to save lives.

During the Nov. 17 “Have A Heart” blood drive, some 857 UD students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends teamed up to donate 558 units and give UD its third consecutive CAA Blood Challenge title.

The 2004 “Have A Heart” blood drive broke all previous records, with 2,929 attempted donors contributing 2,114 productive units of blood across all the participating CAA schools. The totals represent a 50 percent increase over the previous year and an 81.5 percent increase over the initial campaign in 2002.

“The CAA Challenge is a happy combination of an important
public service, a competition and fun,” UD President David P. Roselle said. “It’s wonderful that staff and students of the CAA institutions are enthusiastic about a competition in which the real winners are persons in need in our communities.”

On Saturday, Feb. 5, CAA Commissioner Tom Yeager joined representatives from Blood Bank of Delmarva at the Bob Carpenter Center to present the award to UD during halftime festivities in a CAA men’s hoop contest between the Blue Hens and William and Mary.

Accepting the award for UD were representatives from student groups who sponsored the CAA Blood Challenge, including Kappa Alpha Theta, the Resident Student Association and HOLA.

In a statement released in December after the completion of this year’s “Have A Heart” blood drive, Yeager and Robert L. Travis, president and CEO of Blood Bank of Delmarva, praised the efforts of the schools that participated in the Blood Challenge.

Senior Michelle Koslow, junior Adam Rosen, junior Megan Graham and sophomore Donald Jermain Taylor accept the trophy on behalf of the student groups who sponsored the CAA Blood Challenge at UD, including Kappa Alpha Theta, the Resident Student Association and HOLA.

“We are extremely proud of the continued success of the CAA Blood Challenge,” Yeager said. “Our thanks go out to the many volunteers on each of our campuses who participated in this project and to all of the people who took time to donate blood. We look forward to raising the donor totals even higher in the future.”

For the Blood Bank of Delmarva, the latest “Have A Heart” blood drive at UD was once again the largest single-day blood drive in its history. UD more than doubled its number of attempted donors and collected 277 more units of blood than during the 2003 CAA Blood Challenge.

“We congratulate and are extremely grateful to Dr. Roselle and the hundreds of good people at the University of Delaware who planned and took part in this record-setting blood drive,” Travis said. “We also are thankful to the Colonial Athletic Association for sponsoring the challenge, which is truly helping the 10 communities involved in a very significant way. Many lives are being saved in the spirit of friendly competition. Everyone involved should feel very proud of what they have accomplished.”

The CAA Blood Challenge began in 2002, when Roselle suggested to his peers at conference institutions that a friendly competition might be a good way to get the message out about the importance of donating blood. CAA institutions work with their local blood service centers to set aside one day during the fall to conduct a campuswide blood drive. Student groups, faculty, staff and alumni are all encouraged to participate.

Joining UD in the CAA Blood Challenge were UNC Wilmington, Drexel, George Mason, Hofstra, James Madison, Old Dominion, Towson and Virginia Commonwealth universities and the College of William and Mary.

Article by Jerry Rhodes
Photos by Kathy F. Atkinson and Kevin Tucker

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