UW competes for $1 million in campus blood drive

Back in to Seattle News today, everybody, Matthew Smith, hanging out with you here inside the Box 13 Seattle Newsroom. Next up, I want to talk about this event unfolding over at the UW. Really, really cool event because in specific, they're taking part in what's known as the Abbots We Give Blood Big Ten Challenge at Husky Stadium today. And this is going to be going on for a little bit longer here, too. They're going to be doing additional blood drives on the 17th and the 20th. Well, I actually want to get a chance right now to welcome in Brent Tippin. He's, I believe, actually at this event today. Brent, thanks for joining us. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm here live in Husky Stadium at the University of Washington. Well, this is a really cool event. We like to hear people helping out and donating blood at any time of the year. But this is kind of interesting because there's just a little bit of a twist on this. Do you want to kind of just walk me through what you guys are doing to make it possible for UW to potentially win up to a million dollars? Yeah, you know, Abbott is a global healthcare company, and we're partnering with the Big Ten on the We Give Blood Drive. And it basically is a competition amongst all of the Big Ten schools to see who can give the most blood and generate the most attention to new young donors, blood donors, as there are some large gaps between maybe people who are aging out of blood donation and the next generation of blood donors. Part of this competition is to excite young blood donors. And Abbott is going to be giving a million dollars to the school who donates the most blood going to health programs. And so we're here at Husky Stadium today really welcoming a lot of first-time donors to come and give blood for the first time. It is so interesting, too, because I know, like, working in this media space, we kind of, like, hold on the curtain a little bit. We tell our viewers, like, we're going to give you all the extra information because we have a little bit more time to sit with these stories. And I'll be honest, for years, I always hear this call for blood, and it just feels like there's always this desperation. We don't have enough donors. We don't have enough people. It's that time of year where there's more car crashes or there's more people in the hospital for this reason or that reason. I mean, I don't know about you from your perspective, but are you feeling like... Like we just have an issue here that not enough people are there. You mentioned folks are aging out. I hadn't thought of that as part of the reason I'm seeing this. Yeah, absolutely. People are aging out of the blood donation system. I think a lot of times as well during the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of the newer, younger folks that would be typically coming up learning how to donate blood in high school or their first time in college getting exposed to a blood donation, they didn't have those experiences. And so there's some pretty Pretty large gap in terms of folks who are historically donating blood. And this newer, younger generation that are going to fill those gaps going forward. And so at Abbott, you know, we make a lot of the technology and the diagnostics around blood testing. And so if you think about 80% of the U.S. blood supply goes through an Abbott diagnostic machine, and we're just trying to really excite and bring young people together. And we thought a friendly competition in the Big Ten of putting schools and students against each other at different universities to compete. With a really cool financial incentive for the university to go in and support health care programs. And, you know, in doing so, all donors who log their donations as well get a really cool T-shirt that is a Washington Gives Blood T-shirt and that really cool Huskies purple. And they also get an opportunity to save lives. I think what a lot of people don't realize is by giving one blood donation, you can save up to three lives. And so as we're seeing national blood shortages and shortages here in Washington specifically, everybody giving blood can do their part. And it just really takes a small amount of time to come and do it and to show your support to help people live a little bit healthier lives who may be going through difficult situations. I tell you what, it is cool that Abbott's doing this. I mean, where did you guys come up with an idea like this for, though? Because, like, as soon as you say it, it makes perfect sense to me. Like, this is that age bracket, especially, like, freshmen and sophomores, like you said, that may have been towards the end of their high school years. That's how I learned to donate. I was in high school the first time I donated at a local church. We were told by our local Becca Club, I think, to, hey, go down the road, and it's an opportunity. But I guess I was just curious, like... Is this something you've done with other football conferences? Is this something that you guys have done on a different scale? Like, how do you guys get to what you're doing here today? No, the first time we did this was in partnership with the Big Ten. And so we've been working with the Big Ten to come up with this concept and this idea, working with all of the universities and the conference to really drive some attention and some excitement. And we thought via athletics, and you think about the football teams competing or different sports competing at the different universities, why not have universities also compete to help save lives? And so You know, we're partnering with the athletics programs, with the universities themselves, to drive that attention, to really get students and faculty and staff in the community excited. Folks living in Washington are already really excited to support the University of Washington. We've got a lot of alumni here in the community who want to do something to help the community. And so we partner with the local blood centers here, with Bloodworks Northwest, with the with the American Red Cross. To really drive a lot of attention for people to come in and give blood donations. It's a really simple process to just show up to donate. We ask folks to log their donations on BigTen.org slash Abbott, A-B-B-O-T-T. They get their t-shirt. It's really simple. We've had some food incentives. Today we had a cookie dough truck, who's a local University of Washington graduate, Sugar and Spoon, who came out to support. And so folks who donated also got some food. They enjoy the canteen. They're right here in Husky Stadium overlooking the field, which is pretty cool. I mean, it's a really unique spot to be able to give a blood donation with a really cool view. Thank you. Thank you. The quarterback of the football team came out to support. Dubs was here helping out and gave all the cool barks and greetings and handshakes to all the blood donors. It's been a really exciting day on campus. We've got a few more hours that we're going to be here. And as you mentioned earlier, we're going to be back on campus next week at the Hub on both the 17th and the 20th. You'll see the food trucks. We've got lots of athletes that are going to come by to sign autographs and do photo ops. Dubs is coming back out, so you can't miss Dubs. I mean, everybody loves Dubs, so you've got to come in and say hi and get your photo taken. I'm glad you mentioned Dubs because we kept playing the video and there's all these people giving blood and then randomly there's people uh hugging Dubs the dog and I it does probably help the viewers like Matt are you being crazy here you just randomly put the dog in got the extra added bonus of meeting the mascot that's a that's a pretty cool gig on top of knowing that you're doing something really cool now I should ask you I know you've been out there I could see you're there now, so what reaction do you get? From some of these students that may be donating for the first time, if you had a chance to talk to them, what are they saying about this event? Yeah, we've had quite a number of students, quite a number of faculty and staff come in that are donating. I've actually had an opportunity today to meet a lot of first-time blood donors, which I personally was very excited about. I think it's starting some new traditions for people. Some of the students I learned have watched their families, their parents, and their grandparents give blood. And one of the, I think I saw. Earlier, a couple of the women had their bandages on and were hugging doves. They came together to give the blood donation. One of the friends was coming and asked the other friend to come, who had seen her family give. And she was like, oh, yeah, this will take 15, 20 minutes. It'll be super easy. I'm going to join you. They came out to get some cookie dough. They got Dubs hugs. They're getting their T-shirt. The reaction of learning that they're saving up to three lives with just one blood donation that took about 15 minutes, you see people with tears in their eyes, honestly, just with the idea of being able to give back and knowing that blood is not something we can replicate, it's not something we can make up, it is a human-to-human connection, and our partners at Bloodworks Northwest are just really welcoming and they're really great. They do all of the pre-questionnaires that are pretty simple and straightforward. They do a simple finger prick to just test and make sure that you're eligible to give blood during the day. And then they sit you down and you just have a real quick experience. We've got some music playing. We've had doves come out. We had DeMond, the quarterback, come by. He was visiting with all the blood donors. It's just been a fun experience. And everyone that I've talked to when they're sitting at the canteen and they're all talking afterwards, they're just talking about how they came for the competition, but what they realized is there really the big reason they came was to help save lives? And when that reality sets in, I think you learn really quickly. You've got blood donors for life at that point. And at the time in the canteen, there were five, six, seven, eight people having their snacks and their juices after they give To hang out for a few minutes just to make sure everybody's OK. And for a moment, we turned around and looked and every single person in the circle was a first time blood donor. And so when we talk about making this competitive. And wanting to excite the next generation. We're seeing that firsthand today with all the number of first-time blood donors coming here. And they're doing it to save lives. And at Abbott, we're in the life-saving business, right? We've been in healthcare for nearly 140 years. And we are in the life-saving business. So for me and all of my colleagues, that's why we get up and come to work every day, is to try to help people live healthier and better lives. And to know that we've got the Washington community behind us and the University of Washington Here trying to help save folks lives. It just really means a lot. And I think you see that really quickly whenever you're able to kind of make that connection. You see the spark of like, wow, I'm here truly helping people live healthier lives now. For the folks out there, they might be able to squeeze in. They're out there until 6 o'clock tonight, but they will be back, you said, the 17th and the 20th. We'll make sure people get connected because it sounds like you guys are bringing a lot of new folks into the fold. Brent Tippin with Abbott. Brent, thanks so much for taking a little bit of time and chatting with us today. Yeah, thank you, Matthew, for having me. I really appreciate it. For all of your viewers out there, come out and see us and give your blood and sign up and support University of Washington. The possibility of a million dollars on the line for UW and their health programs. We'll keep an eye on it and let you guys know how things turn out now that we've been introduced to Brent. All right. Time right now is 3:27. Folks at home, I want to let you know when we come back, we're going to jump into the On the Sidelines podcast. Myself, Dante Jackson, and Chris Swanson walking you through everything you need to know in the world of sports. This one's hot off the press. In fact, we did it live on the set just a few hours ago. I want to make sure you guys are also caught up on a few of the headlines that we're tracking for you. Right now, we're going to take that short commercial break. We'll see you in just two minutes.