Liu Yuan, a doctoral student from the College of Horticulture & Forestry Sciences at HZAU, set a goal to donate blood 100 times cumulatively by the end of the year 2022. As of now, he has donated blood 86 times since his first donation as a freshman, and he believes this “small goal” is not distant.
“For me, blood donation is just an act of kindness. As a college student, I feel a sense of responsibility to help more people,” Liu Yuan said.
Liu Yuan donates bloods.
It was as early as in 2013 that Liu first donated blood during his military training. One day, he saw a bloodmobile on campus, and he stepped onto it without hesitation. The nurse told him that blood was defined as a “strategic resource” by WHO as it could neither be synthesized artificially, nor replaced or long-preserved, and that it was the hardest time to get blood donations in summer and winter. To encourage more people to donate blood, he became a volunteer for blood collection service. When the bloodmobile comes to the university, he helps pitch the tents, encourages peer students to donate blood, and also donates blood himself.
“When I was in my freshman and sophomore year, I donated blood about once every six months. Afterwards, a nurse told me one could donate blood components every half month, so in recent years I have been to the blood center every half month and donating whole blood or platelets more than 20 times a year,” Liu Yuan said, “Many people do not know there are different ways to donate. Donors are eligible for a whole blood donation once every six months, and a platelet donation once or twice a month.”
Liu Yuan has been conferred with certificates of honor for blood donation.
“Blood donation under scientific instructions is harmless to health. For eligible donors, donating 200 to 400 ml of blood, which is no more than one-tenth of the total amount of blood in the human body, will not cause substantial damage to their health. Every time I donated blood, the nurses would express their gratitude to me, which made me very happy and feel that I had done something good,” Liu said.
Blood donation also helped Liu Yuan realize a small dream. He happened to find his name lying together with the name of his “idol” and Xu Benyu, an alumnus of HZAU and one of CCTV’s “People Who Moved China, 2005”, on the blood donor honor roll released by the blood center. “I have read many reports about Xu, and it was his experience that kindled my enthusiasm for volunteer service,” Liu said.
Liu Yuan comes across Mr. Xu Benyu in the blood center.
Liu met Xu Benyu by chance when he went to Jiangnan Branch of Wuhan Blood Center for blood donation as usual on February 5. They added WeChat friends and took a photo together. He said, “With the encouragement from Mr. Xu, I will be more determined to keep on donating blood and volunteering.”
Source: http://news.hzau.edu.cn/2022/0308/62719.shtml
Translated by: Deng Qingqing
Supervised by: Guo Haiyan
