Mississippi College Students Boost November Blood Drive
December 2, 2011
Mississippi College junior Tiffany Hunt didn’t hesitate to donate blood when her great uncle from Brandon recently got sick.
A 19-year-old accounting and pre-law major from Cleveland, Miss., Hunt also signed up to donate blood again Wednesday at a Mississippi Blood Services drive on the Clinton campus.
“You never know” when people need blood, Hunt said while making a donation at Alumni Hall on a brisk late November afternoon. “When my grandma had cancer, I was old enough and started giving.”
A few feet away, freshman Joshua Swayne, 18, of Montgomery, Ala. was also giving the gift of life. It was the second time the nursing major donated blood at the Christian university this fall.
MC students last donated blood on campus at a two-day MBS drive in October sponsored by the university’s chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, the Jackson-based national honor society for two-year colleges.
Mississippi Blood Services supplies blood and blood products to 49 hospitals around the Magnolia State. MC will host a half dozen blood drives during the 2011-2012 academic year.
With the Christmas holidays approaching, Mississippi College students are taking part in other good causes. On Saturday, December 3, MC students will assist with an Angel Tree toy drive outside the Walmart in Clinton. The annual drive to brighten the holidays for needy children in Central Mississippi will go on from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m.
Toys typically go to children from infants through pre-teens. Games, puzzles, sporting equipment, and much more will be delivered to kids again this year.
On the last week of the campaign, MC students, faculty and staff are also donating to the national Angel Tree project on the Clinton campus. The toy drive provides Christmas cheer to some of the 1.5 million children with one or both parents in USA prisons. Participants can stop by the table at the MC cafeteria to pick up an “angel” or make a donation to the university’s Community Service Center.
The campaign began with 135 angels and there are 50 angels left to be adopted as of Wednesday afternoon, says Shari Barnes, director of the Community Service Center.
At another table in the cafeteria, MC art education students Shea Witt of Arkansas, Ashley Parella of Grenada and Jennifer Bowman of Starkville were busy selling Christmas ornaments. The handmade ornaments, whether trees, crosses or stockings, go for $5 each. Other popular ornaments are tribe mascots and gingerbread men decorated to look like Star Wars figures, says Stephanie Busbea, the MC art education coordinator.
The sale continues through December 3.
Money raised from the sale will be used to help Mississippi College students attend the National Art Education Association conference in New York next year.
Students interested in working at Saturday’s toy drive at Walmart off U.S. 80 or taking part in other activities as volunteers should contact Community Service Center Director Shari Barnes at 601.925.3267 or sbarnes@mc.edu.
Photo: Tiffany Hunt, an MC junior from Cleveland, Miss., gives blood.
