Yale Bests Harvard, For Once, in Blood Donations

Harvard may have gotten the best of its New Haven archrival in the last four annual football contests, but Yale was declared the victor yesterday in the most recent clash of the Ivy League titans—the contest to see which school could collect more blood for the American Red Cross.

The Red Cross has announced that Yale won the first Harvard-Yale Blood Drive Challenge, which took place on both campuses last week.

But with 564 units of blood collected between the two schools, both sides said they were proud of the results.

“I’m thrilled about the win, as are all the members of the American Red Cross at Yale who put so much time and effort into making this drive the tremendous success that it turned out to be,” Jenny X. Zhang, the founder and chair of the American Red Cross at Yale, wrote in an e-mail.

The Harvard-Yale rivalry sparked increased participation in donating blood, volunteering, and publicizing the drive at each school, American Red Cross Account Executive Jennifer Kim wrote in an e-mail to the Harvard Blood Drive, the student group that ran the event at Harvard.

Harvard collected 250 units of blood between Feb. 9 and 11, while Yale collected 314 units in their blood drive.

Zhang said that she believed Yale set a record for units collected and people signing up to donate.

The results were tallied by awarding each school points in several categories, with Yale receiving 629 points and Harvard earning 461 points.

Harvard beat Yale in the rate of scheduled donors showing up to the drive with 244 percent, meaning many people came to donate who did not make appointments. Harvard’s blood drive was also staffed by volunteers for the entire time, whereas Yale’s was not.

”We thank and congratulate all of our volunteers for their efforts before and during the February Drive,” said Hanah-Sarah Faich ‘07, co-chair of Harvard Blood Drive.

But Yale surged to victory on the strength of its greater number of units collected.

Yale also had 168 first-time donors compared with Harvard’s 55, and eight percent of the total student body at Yale donated blood, versus six percent at Harvard.

Faich expressed disappointment at Harvard’s loss, but said she was already looking ahead to the next challenge.

“I think the one area that we need to work on for future drives is attracting first-time donors,” she said.

Students who came to Harvard’s blood drive, held in Adams House, had the chance to enter a Valentine’s Day raffle. If five members of a student group came together to volunteer or donate, they were entered to win a miniature iPod and iTunes gift certificates.

The participants also voted in a t-shirt design contest, selecting as the winning slogan, “I saved a life and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.”

“I always try to make it whenever I can,” said Julie B. Goldman ’05, who came to donate blood on Friday. “I think it’s an easy way to help....The Harvard-Yale challenge is a cute race.”

As the losing school, Harvard is required to print an ad in the Yale Daily News congratulating their rival on the victory.

The next Harvard-Yale Blood Drive Challenge is set for April 2006.