Giving Blood

Yesterday afternoon Bry and I went for our scheduled blood donation. Bry never gave before, but I have been giving regularly for years. Once I found out I was O type I felt a responsibility. That and we don't have a ton of money to give, so instead we can give whatever we have.

So anyway, back to the story. The blood drive was associated with a health fair that they were having at one of the schools I teach at. I suppose the idea was to draw in people from the health fair. So as we waited, we sat in chairs by the entrance. I know that a lot of people are afraid to give blood. What astounded me was people's reactions to the question "would you like to give blood." Half of the people gave the woman asking this look as if to say "how dare you ask me that" and they would say a firm "no." The other half had a ridiculous list of reasons why they couldn't. A few people who claimed they were too thin (although they were well over the 115 lbs that are needed to donate), some were on "meds that won't allow them to give," other had places to be... and so on. In the entire 45 minutes to an hour we were there not one person decided to donate other than those who had appointments.

This just got me to thinking about how little people generally feel a sense of responsibility to their fellow man. I have always felt a need to give in any way I can. Yet, so many people seem to have no concern about the people around them. I left feeling good about having helped people, but kind of crappy about how few people want to help. It made me decide to offer extra credit to students who will either donate their time to charity, donate blood or any other charitable acts. Perhaps with a little incentive I can turn a few people on to helping their fellow man.