Students are literally shedding blood in order to show their school pride throughout the week. The 15th annual Civil War Blood Drive will be hosted in the Memorial Union.

The blood drive will go from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day until Thursday inside at the MU Ballroom. If students are interested in donating blood, but cannot make it to those days, the American Red Cross Blood Drive will also be hosted by The First United Methodist Church which is located at 1165 NW Monroe Ave.  

The blood drive works not only to benefit the community, but to also foster a competition between OSU and the University of Oregon. The university who gives the most blood will be announced at the Civil War football game this weekend.

For many people, donating blood is sometimes not an option, this is why it’s important for those who are able to donate try and donate blood according to Stephanie Broad, an Employee for the American Red Cross.

“You’re saving lives,” Broad said. “I feel like there’s a lot of people who want to donate blood who aren’t able to for some reason or another, so if you’re able to it’s good to go and do it. People need blood all the time—it’s very important.”

For some students, donating blood is a very personal act, such as student Karl Emmrich Emmrich donated blood three times since last year because for him, it had impacted both his life and his fraternity.

“It’s for my fraternity, Acacia, it’s something that we all do,” Emmrich said. “Acacia specifically does it because we had a brother that died because he couldn’t get a blood transfusion. So every time OSU has a blood drive we all tried to at least help in by giving an hour and helping people.”

For others, like Greg Smith, an employee who was working at the blood drive, he believes that people used to donate blood because it was a sense of pride, and to be involved and know that the donation was truly going to help the community who are in need.

“A long time ago it always seems like it was almost a privilege to come dressed, almost in their church clothes. To just come from miles around to the Red Cross and donate because they knew how much of a big help that was,” Smith said. “But every time I come to OSU and I see all these new faces and all these new students coming in it just raises my spirits. There are a lot of donors out there and there are a lot of people who take pride in the fact that they are helping so many people.”

For more information about the Civil War Blood Drive, contact the American Red Cross, or the Memorial Union.