Would you like to save a life? When asked that question, one would imagine that most people would say, “Yes, of course.” So why is it that only 9.5 million out of 310.6 million people donate blood in the United States? Some people say that they don’t have the time or that they are afraid of needles. Well, when those people are in a horrible car accident and need blood in order to survive, I highly doubt that they will be accepting of those same excuses from others.

One would think the fact that the entire blood donation process takes less than an hour and can help save up to three lives would be enough to make people want to donate, but apparently it is not. Someone in the United States needs blood every two seconds—that means 38,000 blood donations a day. The cute girl you used to babysit, the gorgeous guy in Statistics, your sister, your dad or even yourself could need blood next.

The Red Cross comes to Warwick every month. Instead of going home right after class, why not donate blood? If you take six out of your 8,760 hours a year to donate blood, you could save 18 lives. That means not only are you a life saver, but since you still have 8,754 hours to spend doing whatever you want, you can still have a social life.

My advice? Be proactive, and go save a life. Your blood is more valuable than you know. Visit the American Red Cross website at redcrossblood.org or call 1-800-733-2767 for more information.