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April 22, 2008 — Local high school
teams may have walked away with the trophies in
Tuesday’s Social Entrepreneurship Challenge, but
communities across Cattaraugus and Allegany counties
were the true winners.
The objective: implement a service
learning project partnering New York REAL, Cattaraugus
Allegany BOCES, St. Bonaventure University Students in
Free Enterprise (SIFE), and area high schools to
increase blood donations to the local regional
hospitals.
The
result: dozens of local high school students helped
organize eight blood drives this spring that netted 250
pints of blood.
Eight high schools formed teams to
take on the social entrepreneurship challenge and create
marketing plans for a blood drive in their community
that would assist the non-profit Community Blood Bank
(CBB), which provides about 40,000 units of blood per
year to hospitals in Western New York and
Northwest Pennsylvania.
Team members obtained sponsors for
their themed blood drive; developed radio, video and
print advertising; surveyed donors and non-donors; and
researched the blood bank and its challenges.
CBB officials are holding up this
competition as having nationwide potential for
addressing the problem of chronic blood shortages.
“This program is ground
breaking,” stated Dan DesRochers, director of marketing
for CBB.
“This competition has
implications for the entire country in terms of how one
markets blood drives in high schools.
We believe that we have a
prototype that can revolutionize how one can change
life-long donation patterns.
We are indebted to NY
REAL, CABOCES, St. Bonaventure and these schools for
what they have done.”
Participating schools were Belfast, Bolivar-Richburg, Fillmore, Friendship, Genesee
Valley,
Olean, Scio and
Whitesville.
The students’ projects were judged
on the development of a plans book and Tuesday’s
presentation of their project to a panel of judges.
Teams were also judged on
their ability to address ethical issues relating to the
blood industry.
Schools earning prizes in the overall
competition were:
Recipients of individual marketing
awards were
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Marketing
plan:
Genesee
Valley
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Theme: Fillmore
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TV ad:
Genesee
Valley
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Radio ad:
Fillmore
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Print
ad: Fillmore and
Genesee
Valley
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Non-traditional:
Genesee
Valley
Recipients
of the ethics awards were:
Since
inaugurated by New York REAL in 2006 these high school
business competitions have improved in both quality and
scope.
Dr. Barbara Van Wicklin, Program
Manager for Professional Development at CA BOCES, said,
“The level of professionalism exhibited by the students
is amazing. Each year it gets better and better.”
Dr. Todd
Palmer, adviser to St. Bonaventure’s Students in Free
Enterprise organization, described the service learning
competition as a reinvention of the high school blood
drive.
“It’s
different from anything I’ve ever seen before,” he said.
“The response (to the drives) has been overwhelming.
Each of these schools had great blood drives, extracting
approximately 35 percent more blood than in traditional
drives.”
In addition
to building marketing and communications skills, “It
gave students a chance to reach out and appreciate their
communities,” said Hallie Steube, a graduate assistant
with SIFE. Students at one of the schools received
internship offers from television and radio stations
they interacted with for the project.
Colleen
Myers, who served as adviser of the Fillmore Central
School’s team, was impressed as she watched students at
her school “going out of their comfort zone” to make
contacts and organize Fillmore’s blood drive.
“These are
kids who are really motivated and really trying to focus
on a cohesive theme,” said Myers, who is a math teacher
at Fillmore and a 1981 graduate of St. Bonaventure.
Groundwork
for the blood drives began last fall with a leadership
training day for the teachers and student leaders. St.
Bonaventure business and education students followed up
by visiting each school several times over the past few
months.
In addition
to cash prizes, which were provided by CBB, members of
the winning team will have the opportunity to spend a
day in
Erie,
Pa.,
talking with top marketing executives. Joining SIFE and
Community Blood Bank in sponsoring the Social
Entrepreneurship Challenge were New York Real, which
promotes entrepreneurship throughout Allegany and
Cattaraugus counties through project-based learning and
teacher training, a unit of Cattaraugus-Allegany BOCES.
The
Community Blood Bank of Northwest Pennsylvania and
New York is the exclusive supplier of blood
to all the hospitals in Erie,
Warren, McKean and Elk counties and provides about 90
percent of all the blood used in Chautauqua, Cattaraugus
and Allegany counties in Western
New York.
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