I knew what all the fuss was about. I had been approached by an elementary student earlier in the hall. She asked me to be her sponsor. She caught me off guard and I reluctantly said, "sure" before I realized what it was I was actually signing up for. She said, sign here and date. So I did. Then she said, "what time?". My brain was brought back to real world issues when I said, "What time for what?". It seems I was actually signing up to donate blood. Which I immediately squashed because I thought that my chemo fried blood would be unwanted, but after reading the pamphlet it seems after one year in remission it is okay to donate again. :)
Now,please don't judge me. I have no issue with the donation of blood. I used to donate plasma all the time. My issue is with the way the child approached me. Maybe I was too distracted to get all the information. Maybe I should have slowed her presentation down to the speed it takes my old mommy brain to hear things. But I have real issues with little kids running around collecting signatures and phone numbers for something as serious as a blood donation.
After refereeing the fight between my kindergartner, first grader, and fifth grader, I came to realize it was some sort of class competition to get people to sign up. The class who get the most people to actually donate gets a pizza party. Any student who signs up someone who donates blood wins a t-shirt. I understand how life saving a blood donation can be. Isn't the fact that you are saving a life reward enough? Now we need to bribe our young with food and free prizes?
What has the world come to that we have to bribe kids ages 5-12 to get people to cough up their phone numbers for a blood drive?
Maybe this situation is not the way it was intended to happen, but I am really turned off about the process. It's unfortunate, too, because I might have actually donated if I didn't have to choose a child to support :)
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