[MUSIC] I worked on a Buffalo Bill's drive with students, and it just made me so proud to see it go from start to finish. And the work that went into it, the strategy, to see the growth of the students through time, and then to show that the work was all worth it in the end was just a, an amazing feeling. Yeah, you know, the students actually got together and they were new to the idea of planning a blood drive. But they're naturally and I, I always like to use that. So first thing I usually do with them is have them sit together and brainstorm, and just kind of get the ideas rolling and I always tell them, if they come up with no ideas, that's okay. I've never had that happen yet. So, from there, we take them into a group of seasoned seasoned for, focus group. And then that works out just great because they're kind of warmed up to the idea of thinking, and sharing, and knowing that their opinion matters and can be used. And so when you bring them into a more seasoned focus group, they develop that more and the ideas grow, and then you set your strategy from there. Ever since I started with the Red Cross 12 years ago, my [LAUGH] goal has been to do a 500 unit blood drive. That means 500 blood donations. It's tremendous. And it also would set the one day record within our New York Penn region. So it's been a goal of mine forever. Having the Buffalo Bills partner with the Red Cross was pretty amazing and gave us that opportunity. And that I worked with so many college students it was a, a natural fit to say, hey we can make this happen now. And they, they made my dreams come true. We had 524 productive blood donations and almost 600 people in the door that day. We actually had one of our students that's more technical put together a whole map of the Buffalo, West New York area because it's a more regional pull for donors. And we had assignments so each person owned a piece of it, even though they used their team members. So that was really neat to watch happen because I've always done it as a group effort. And you, you go to a town and you kind of go all over there and try to figure out the best ways to reach out to people. And this time, all of the sudden they started thinking, oh we could do this. And it was an area they were familiar with. And when they had that ownership, made all the difference in the world. And then they pulled their team members into it. I'm really big on group activities and appreciating the strengths of others, but not having that taken advantage of, not you doing the work. So I was really proud, one time one of the students, actually at ECC, ended up getting a, class that they could go speak to. And it was during the summer, but it was like automotive and things like that and there were a lot of people in it. And that girl wasn't so good at public speaking. So she, on her own, grabbed the student, actually it was a Buff State student that was really good at public speaking, they did it together. And I'm like, that's exactly what I want to see. And it just made them feel more of a team, and accomplishing it all together. You know, we were all excited as a team. Some people doubted us. You know, it's hard to believe that that many donors would come in the door and it had never been done before. So we had challenges like that, but overall the team was very excited about the project. They were very excited on a day-to-day pe, basis when everybody could respond well. So when they went to businesses and asked them to, you know, send a couple employees, let their customers know, do appointments, and they had a little routine down. It, it was really great to say, hey, you, you know what, they actually gave me a giveaway to give. Or, they said they'd send two people. And it's funny how you're looking for 600, how exciting when somebody tells you that 2 people matter. It does, it all matters. And it just gave the, that momentum to go forward with. The creativity was done like the students actually came up, you know, you have those sign flippers and everything, and I've never used them before. Well the two outgoing people went to town and did some of that to get the word out. We had little Life Savers that actually, and ha-ha, Life Savers [LAUGH] with the blood drives that had the blood drive information on it, that we could put at certain restaurants. So you tried to do the high traffic ones to get more people to come in on. And these are some of the students' ideas. And it's just from sitting at a table. So sometimes they're simple, but brilliant. I can't tell you how brilliant that Life Saver idea was. And to go out and do that was great. And then to do the sign thing, it really drew attention for people, and that's, that's what it's all about, getting the word out there. And sometimes they were bigger ideas like that timeline. I can't tell you how appreciative I was of that, and that everybody was on the same page. And even doing that map or doing the assignments of people. So that was all team concepts that came up with, not something that I said hey, we're doing this. It, it was something we all came up with together, we all owned the idea, we all moved forward [MUSIC]
