High School students are encouraged to become life long blood donors as part of the Young Blood for Life campaign through Canadian Blood Services.

Lindsay Thurber Comprehensive High School, Hunting Hills High School, and Notre Dame High School have partnered with Canadian Blood services for a second year of the challenge.

The Young Blood for Life campaign runs for a nine month period from Sept. 15th to May 31, 2011. The challenge includes participating schools from all across Canada.

Students compete against other high schools to see who can bring in the most blood donations on behalf of the challenge.

“Young Blood for Life was a tremendous success in 2009,” says Jenny Voysey, the community development coordinator for Canadian Blood Services.

“Lindsay Thurber Comprehensive High School won the challenge nationally by collecting 768 blood donations. Notre Dame and Hunting Hills were also in the top four with 512 and 463 donations respectively.

“Together, the three participating high schools collected 1,743 donations. Since every donation can save or improve the lives of three patients, donors impacted 5,229 lives. “

Canadian Blood Services hopes to achieve the same success in this year’s campaign as last year with donations as well as all having all three of the high schools placing nationally again.

Cash prizes are awarded on local, regional, and national levels to each of the high schools that receive the most blood donations or bring in the most new donors during the campaign.

In the upcoming year, Canadian Blood Services must recruit more than 90,000 new donors. It is especially urgent that high school aged students become donors.

Students, parents, teachers and friends are encouraged to make a blood donation on behalf of the campaign.

To make a donation, call Canadian Blood Services for an appointment. Specify which school you would like to donate for.

Students can make a donation more than once to improve their school’s chances at winning the challenge.

Last year, the Young Blood for Life campaign collected around 6,126 blood donations nationally.

The Young Blood for Life campaign is targeted at engaging high school students to donate blood across Canada and to keep them doing so throughout their lifetimes.

“Students can have a huge impact on the lives of patients simply by taking an hour to give blood and by encouraging other to join in,” says Voysey.

“When you start giving blood as a teenager, you are more likely to keep doing it throughout your life.”

For more information, call 1-888-236-6283.