Simi Siblings’ Blood Drives Good to the Last Drop

With battered clipboard and gentle smile, Mary Allegra on Thursday began her family’s last blood drive at Simi Valley High School.

Like her older brother Vincent and sister Ginny before her, 18-year-old Mary launched yet another two-day drive for United Blood Services of Ventura County, wheedling reluctant Simi High classmates into donating their blood.

Since 1990 the Allegra siblings have led a campaign that has drained more than 1,400 pints of life-giving plasma from Simi High students for the county’s hospitals and clinics.

But Mary Allegra graduates this spring after three years of leading blood drives--the youngest and last of her family of dedicated solicitors--and United Blood Services of Ventura County will have to find a new crusader at the school.

“This is the only family in our county that has shared a blood drive,” said Tracee Elder, a spokeswoman for United Blood Services. “This has been passed on from brother to sister to sister.”

Thanks to the Allegras’ work, Simi Valley High School collects more units of blood at each drive than any other school in eastern Ventura County, Elder said.

The Allegras began pushing classmates to give blood in 1990, when their father was dying of cancer and badly in need of blood, Mary said.

After seeing how United Blood Services helped his treatment before his death in 1991, they decided to give help back.

There is no secret to recruiting donors, who must be at least 17 years old, 110 pounds and in good health, she said.

Willing donors sign up on their own as soon as Mary and other volunteers put out word of a drive and set up a registration table.

First-timers ask a lot of frightened questions, and the volunteers do their best to answer.

“They’re afraid of it, that it’s going to hurt, that they’re going to pass out or get sick,” she said.

Not that it won’t happen. A girl once walked into the room, saw classmates lying on recliners with needles in their arms and immediately passed out, she recalled.

Others worry that they will get the AIDS virus in the process; that does not happen because each donor gets a new needle.

But on Thursday, they all started out the same, each with a 45-minute excuse to leave class and a walk to an activity room on the south side of the campus.

There, Mary and other volunteers passed out pamphlets designed to allay their classmates’ fears and inform them about becoming donors, then sent them in to interviews that screen out any unsuitable donors.

Registered nurses hunkered with students behind blue vinyl privacy shields, quizzing them softly about risk factors such as recent tattoos or body piercings, drug use, sexual relations, or voyages to malaria-ridden countries.

And students like 17-year-old junior Michael Latham, who passed muster, lay down calmly so a registered nurse could open their veins.

“I just decided to do something different,” Michael said, as nurse Debbie Hays swabbed his arm with antiseptic, gently slipped a needle into it, and made him grip a block of foam to help pump blood into a nearby bag.

“A lot of people say, ‘Oh, you’re crazy!’ ” he said calmly. “I think they just get scared about getting poked with a needle.”