Emma Sloan from The Blood Transfusion Service speaking to Year 14 students.

The Blood Transfusion Service spoke at Year 14 Assembly this morning to officially launch the beginning of their community based ‘blood drive’ in this area.

Year 14 student, Emma Martin, has come up with the idea to target St Paul’s students and encourage them to give blood as part of a wider community initiative on Friday 8^th November. Ms Christine Fearon, Head of Health & Social Care, is leading the school based campaign and has enlisted the help of the Senior Prefect Team and Health & Social Care students to work with Emma in distributing the blood donor forms and publicising the event among staff and students.

Past pupil, Ryan Cinnamond, is the inspiration behind the blood drive at St Paul’s. He suffered a life threatening illness and received 64 units of blood, the second largest transfusion in the north, in order to save his life. He later had both his legs amputated and received further transfusions. The St Paul’s ‘blood drive’ is aiming to replenish the blood supply of the Blood Transfusion Service in honour of Ryan and to recognise how he has battled and overcome obstacles that others would succumb to. The school is also encouraging people in the wider community to get on board and donate blood in St Paul’s on Friday 8^th November.

As an extension of the campaign, Ryan Cinnamond will address Year 8 students at assembly this week to tell them his story. This will help these young students in submitting entries for a poster competition and the official naming of the blood drive. The LLW Department has kindly agreed to allocate time in their classes over the coming weeks for this competition.

As a school we would like to thank Roisin & Emma Martin, the Cinnamond Family and the Blood Transfusion Service for allowing us the opportunity to get involved in this very worthwhile campaign and we hope it will become an annual event.