Blood donor campaign wins student scholarship

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DAYTON — Recent Versailles High School graduate Hannah Wenig has earned a $1,000 scholarship for her creative approach to encouraging classmates to donate blood in the annual Community Blood Center/Vectren Lead The Way Creative Scholarship competition.

Wenig is among five 2015 Lead The Way Scholarship winners from high schools in Montgomery, Shelby and Darke County.

Applicants were challenged to create a campaign theme for a high school blood drive. The winners found inspiration in favorite games or movies, challenges at school and national news headlines. They expressed their ideas in campaign slogans, and designed T-shirts, brochures, posters or a video as recruitment tools.

Wenig was inspired by the board game “Monopoly” to create a “get out of jail card” theme for blood drive posters and hall passes.

“Motivating students to give blood at their high school blood drive can sometimes be a tricky task,” she said. “A clever, student-focused campaign slogan is needed to grab a young person’s attention.”

“I took the idea of the ‘get out of jail free’ card and altered it into a card that gets students ‘out of class’ for free instead,” she said. Even if a student only participates to get out of class, the purpose is reached as up to three lives may be saved in the process. It is important to know the impact blood contribution has on society, and this knowledge may spur students to continue donating in the future.”

Wenig said she wants to study nursing at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Indiana “because of my compassion for others. I am interested in neonatal nursing and would love to work with babies.”

2015 Lead The Way scholarship applicant videos and samples of winning artwork will be available at www.GivingBlood.org/giving-back/reward. The Lead The Way Creative Scholarship for High School Seniors is made possible by a $5,000 grant from Vectren. It is open to all graduating, college-bound seniors in CBC’s 15-county region whose high school hosts a CBC blood drive.

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