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:

•  First place: Fillmore Central

•   Second place: Genesee Valley

• Third place: Scio

Recipients of individual marketing awards were

• Marketing plan: Genesee Valley

• Theme: Fillmore

• TV ad: Genesee Valley

• Radio ad: Fillmore

•  Print ad: Fillmore and Genesee  Valley

• Non-traditional: Genesee Valley

Recipients of the ethics awards were:

• First place: Olean

• Second place: Whitesville

• Third place: Scio

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.