For the generation of people who lived through World War II, donating blood on a regular basis was considered to be a commonplace civic duty. Today it is still these Americans, now reaching older ages, who support blood banks. But as health problems require them to request blood rather than donate, both older and younger Americans may be faced with a shortage of blood. The concern felt by many health officials is whether this older generation will be able to depend upon younger generations to sustain the blood supply.

To counter this potential future shortage, Stanford, along with 15 other universities, is taking part in a grassroots effort to promote blood donation.

"Basically, the problem we're running into is that it seems blood is needed more and more and blood centers are having a harder and harder time recruiting blood donors among students," Michele Hyndman, the public relations manager at the Stanford Blood Center, said.

"[Young people] have so much going on, so many media messages out there that it's difficult to filter out what's important," she added.

Because of this lack of awareness among people aged 17 to 24, the Ad Council decided to work in conjunction with the three major blood groups -- the American Red Cross, America's Blood Centers and AABB (formerly known as the American Association of Blood Banks) -- to create the Bloodsaves campaign. Though the three blood organizations have worked together on smaller projects, this is the first time they have joined forces to support such a large campaign.

"This is really an unprecedented partnership between the three blood groups and the Ad Council," Ellyn Fisher, manager of Corporate Communications at the Ad Council, said.

Through a series of print, radio and television advertisements and public service announcements, or PSAs, launched in September 2004, these organizations say they hope to educate a new generation about the importance of blood donations.

As part of the nationwide campaign, the Ad Council, a non-profit organization that gathers volunteer contributions from the advertising industry to create public service announcements, announced on Jan. 26 that it had selected 16 universities to participate in a grassroots public education campaign to promote blood donations on campus.

Stanford kicked off its campaign with blood drives on Feb. 28 and Mar. 1. The blood drives included promotions such as a drawing for a free Apple iPod Shuffle, distribution of 2,000 red wristbands printed with the "Bloodsaves.com" Web site and extensive flyering across campus to raise awareness about the events.

The Bloodsaves Web site (http://www.bloodsaves.com) includes facts and statistics about the need for blood donors, a zip-code search for nearby blood centers and an interactive quiz to educate the Web site visitors about myths about blood donation.

According to the Web site, approximately 60 percent of the United States population is eligible to donate blood, but only 5 percent actually take the time and effort to donate.

"We do a lot of research before and during, and focus groups show that young people really want to make a difference in the world but that donating blood is just not on the radar," Fisher said.

Sophomore Mark Liao, an executive officer of the Stanford chapter of the American Red Cross and Bloodsaves' on-campus student representative, said that he was heartened by the attendance and enthusiasm of the students who participated in the blood drives at the University.

"We had a handful of students who we approached while handing out the red Bloodsaves silicone bands that actually stopped on the spot and went to donate," he wrote in an e-mail to the Daily. "They usually weren't aware they could donate, and, thanks to our volunteers on that day, these on-the-spot donors took the time to donate blood. What a great feeling."

Despite the success of being able to spur some students into donating blood for the first time, Hyndman said that in the short term, the Bloodsaves campaign on campus was not as successful as event organizers had hoped it would be.

"Unfortunately, the blood drives that we had where we used Bloodsaves actually did very poorly," she said. "We actually had fewer people turn out this time than we usually do during blood drives."

Organizers said they thought one major factor for the lower turnout may have been that the blood drives were held the week before Dead Week, when many students were preoccupied with end-of-quarter assignments and did not feel that they had time to donate blood.

Fisher said that the Ad Council is currently in the process of evaluating the success of the Bloodsaves campaign by measuring the number of students who participated in the Bloodsaves-sponsored blood drives and tracking the number of hits that the campaign Web site received. Yet these numbers may not provide the most accurate gauge of whether the Bloodsaves campaign is reaching people in the long term.

"Our goal with the [public service announcement] campaign and the ad campaign is really not to increase short-term donations but to create a new generation of lifelong blood donors," Fisher said.

The organizations sponsoring the ongoing Bloodsaves campaign are in the midst of planning more events for college campuses in the future, such as the June 14 World Blood Donor Day, according to Fisher.

The Stanford Blood Center plans to continue holding its own blood drives alongside the Bloodsaves campaign to generate interest in blood donation among students.

"Events such as the Hemo Bowl, where we compete against the "Cal" Blood Donations centers, prizes that attract our generation of donors and outreach to student groups such as fraternities and sororities highlight the Blood Center's commitment to keep the issue of blood donations foremost on student's minds," Liao wrote.

The Stanford Blood Center hopes that future blood drives will reflect a growing student commitment to donating blood. In reaction to the relatively low turnouts for the most recent blood drives, despite increased advertisement across campus and across the nation, Hyndman said that some were disappointed at the numbers.

"We're really kind of at a loss," Hyndman explained, adding that she didn't know exactly why the drives weren't successful. "We're going to keep trying to do new things to encourage young people to donate blood and get them excited about doing so."

"We really need young people to understand that donating blood should be a part of their lives," she said. "We need then to continue to sustain the blood supply for their grandparents and parents in the future."