DECA, formerly Distributive Education Clubs of America, held their first 2023 Blood Drive on Sept. 28 at Norman North’s Performing Arts Center to support hospitals that are in need of blood units and to raise money to donate to Norman North’s Special Olympics.

Jamie Wilson, who has run DECA for the last 15 years, said the blood drive was previously run by Developing Excellence at North, commonly referred to as DEN, but was eventually handed to DECA to manage.

This year, new additions to the event have made sign up numbers almost double from previous years.

 “We’ve actually had a lot of people sign up this year. This has been some of the most we’ve had in a long time.” DECA officer McCartney Holmes said.

According to Wilson, the blood drive usually generates 40 to 50 donations. This year the blood drive ended with 78 donations.

A marketing component that led to more signups is the addition of a random car prize. This year Bob Moore of Bob Moore Kia Northwest, a car dealership based in the Oklahoma City metro area, offered a Kia Soul to be randomly drawn.

The drawing will include participants from blood drives across the Oklahoma City metro who donated in the same week according to Wilson.

 The Blood Drive was also opened up to the community this year and advertised in an article by the Norman Transcript.

Another addition that supported Norman North is the payment for donations.

“This is the first year we get money per donation and the money we’re getting is a little over a thousand dollars from our blood drive and we’re donating that,” Wilson said. “We don’t keep the money, it goes straight to a nonprofit that we choose and we’re giving it to our Norman North Special Olympics kids to help with our uniforms and pay for their meals when they do a Special Olympics event.”

Wilson explains that his involvement in the Blood Drive holds a special meaning to him after requiring donated blood during an open heart surgery. 

“Back in 2018, almost right at five years ago, I had a big open heart surgery and I used around 50 units of blood for my surgery. So, if you kind of look at it that way all of what we used to donate, like 48-50 units, would be what I would have used in one surgery,” he said, “So there’s a huge need for blood.”

According to Wilson and several of his officers, they put a lot of effort into advertising and running the Blood Drive to fulfill this need for blood.

Dody Escoe, a participant in the blood drive, said that she found out about the blood drive through the posters around the school.

“Our DECA officers work really hard to make a ton of posters to go around the school and all my students kind of jump in with all that,” Wilson said, “and now if I can just get them to not be afraid to donate blood.”