HARLINGEN — A helping hand multiplied by a hundred.
On Wednesday morning, beginning at 8 a.m., students and members of Marine Military Academy visited the King Gym to donate blood.
One student in particular, pushed for the event to happen because he saw the benefits it would bring to the community. Cadet Lt. Col. James Neuhoff, 19, Executive Officer and chair of National Junior Honor Society, contracted COVID-19 earlier this year. Neuhoff heard on the news there was a shortage of blood because people were not stepping out to donate. Neuhoff also heard there were benefits to donating plasma and blood with COVID-19 antibodies.
He then gathered a group of classmates who had been affected to donate.
“This will help people recover that are in the hospital and it also supplies blood banks with blood since there is a lack, that is what drove me to do it,” Neuhoff said.
“Since we are in this situation where we have so many kids and it is pretty safe to do it here and it is such a small thing for us to do. It is uncomfortable but it takes 15 minutes and it can save somebody’s life and that is important to me,” he said.
Neuhoff added he donates every chance he gets and started to donate when he was 16.
Jessica Doan, an English teacher and part of the NJHS, said every semester Marine Military Academy does two blood drives, one in the fall semester and one in the spring. The fall donation drive was canceled because of COVID-19. The spring donation was almost canceled too but it was pushed by Neuhoff to be executed.
Doan said over 105 people signed up to donate and the last highest number was 65.
“A lot has to do with the cadets who are very eager to lend a helping hand,” Doan said.
“Kids are not to go out and this is a way for them to do community service time. This has a lot to do with it as well,” she said.
The cadets were in charge of recruiting at least two people from the academy. Anyone who was 16 or younger needed parent consent and faculty members were able to donate, too.
“Kudos to the boys for pushing to get this done,” Doan said.
Neuhoff believes recruiting and the push of the importance of donating blood helped in gathering so many people.
“This is just a small thing we can give to help someone else so why not do that and communicate that to others. Through fliers and social media, I encourage anyone to donate blood to help those in need,” he said.
Ramon Raya, from Vitalant, who conducted the blood drive with other nurses, said other areas in the country have not had a lack of blood resources the way the Rio Grande Valley has had.
“Our community has not responded the way we would love, we don’t have the amount of donations we wish we did,” Raya said.
“This is possibly the biggest MMA blood drive but this will probably be one of two blood drives that draw even close to this amount,” he said.
Raya agreed with Neuhoff on the importance of blood donors and said they are always needed.
“The blood donation will separate the antibody count and will send it out to help those people with COVID-19. The Valley is sadly having to buy blood from other locations so it would be beautiful for people to come out and help our own community,” he said.
