Ms. Nellie Jafari, IPSF Liaison for Virginia Commonwealth University (USA)
IPSF Vampire Cup Campaign “The Vampire Cup is a blood drive where IPSF students try to compete against one another to raise the most units of blood.” Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) School of Pharmacy had our first Vampire Cup blood drive on February 21st, 2013. The Vampire Cup is a blood drive where IPSF students try to compete against one another to raise the most units of blood. Although it was our first time organizing this event, it was a huge success and will definitely become an annual tradition for our IPSF chapter. We partnered with the VCU Student Government Association and the Virginia Blood Bank to organize the blood drive. In addition to videos and posters as promotional items, hundreds of flyers were designed and distributed by our IPSF committee to attract students from all over the medical campus to donate blood for the Vampire Cup. We were also able to get prizes from local businesses to raffle away during the blood drive. What made this blood drive unique was that the whole entire medical campus was involved and encouraged to donate blood. This was done by turning the blood drive into a competition between the
26 IPSF Public Health Spot
different health professional schools. A free pizza party was provided for the health professions’s class with the most blood donations. It was amazing to see all the students from the different health professionals donating blood for the Vampire Cup. Needless to say, the pharmacy class won the competition! Overall, 82 people registered to donate blood, 64 units of blood was collected, which resulted in 192 lives saved! The Virginia Blood Bank said it was the most successful blood drive they have ever had on our campus. We hope to continue this great start to the Vampire Cup and contribute even more to this remarkable cause in the future.