UF is trying to beat the University of Kentucky in the annual “What Colors Do You Bleed?” blood drive.
UF is competing against the college for the eighth year to raise the most blood. The competition started Monday and will go through Friday. Donors for LifeSouth Community Blood Centers get a free T-shirt and help save a life.
Bloodmobiles will be on campus from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Sorority Row and Fraternity Row from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. every day.
There is a huge need for blood right now, said Laura Bialeck, a LifeSouth community development coordinator. During the holidays, donations drop and blood drives can be canceled. If centers don’t have enough blood, they can’t save all of the lives they might need to.
Their goal is to have 1,500 students give blood in order to beat Kentucky and meet the current local hospital needs, she said.
“Last year, Kentucky beat us,” Bialeck said. “We were going neck and neck.”
It is essential to collect all blood types, but she said there is always a need for type O negative blood, the universal donor.
Corey Zallis, 19, said he has given blood eight times — in total, more than a gallon of his blood.
It’s an important thing to do, the UF information systems sophomore said.
“It doesn’t cost anything, except blood, and maybe a little sweat and tears,” he said.
Mandy Moss, a 20-year-old UF mechanical and aerospace engineering junior, squeezes a stress ball as she donates blood in one of the LifeSouth buses on the Reitz Union North Lawn on Monday afternoon. UF is competing against the University of Kentucky to see who can collect the most blood as part of LifeSouth’s “What Colors Do You Bleed?” blood drive.
