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First Time Blood Donor Scoops Top Prize!
19 July 2010
Kent Science Park has given away over £250 of goodies, including a brand new iPod Touch, in a prize draw held to encourage more of the people who work on the park to give blood.
Everyone attending the National Blood Service’s most recent session on July 6th was automatically included in the draw, and the winner was announced as 28-year-old Natallia Gulbis from Sittingbourne, a technical manager in the labs at Plantworks UK.
Other winners included Dovetail Services employees Lyndsay Bootes and Tracey Skeet, who received a month’s free use of Tonics Fitness Centre and £25 to spend at the onsite EcoVillage Café respectively, and Lorraine Philpot of EcoVillage, who also won a free month at Tonics.
The draw, organised by Site Administrator Babs Knott, proved to be a success in increasing blood giving: the park saw a 35% increase in people attending, compared to the previous session in March. Babs said: “We had 73 people turn up on the day which represents 6.6% of the workforce here at Kent Science Park. That is considerably ahead of the national average of only 4% of people giving blood and represents a very promising step towards our target of having 10% of the science park workforce donating.”
“The National Blood Service’s vans are back on the site on the 26th of October, and we are determined to reach our target at that session. We’ll be working hard again to increase awareness among the people who work here, and we’ll definitely be running another prize draw.”
Natallia said: “I decided to start giving blood because I think it is a good thing to do. It costs me nothing, but for someone who needs healthy blood it could be life saving. Having never done it before I was a little bit scared, but the National Blood Service staff were very nice and everything went really well.”
“I was really shocked to hear that I’d won the prize draw! I was just happy to have done a good thing and never really thought about the prize. Some things happen when you least expect them!”
Babs Knott added: “It was great giving Natallia her new iPod because she was so stunned! If I had my way everyone who registered to give blood would get a prize, because it’s really such a worthwhile thing to do, but I’m very pleased for Natallia because she’s been rewarded for taking that really hard first step to start donating. After you’ve done it once it’s much easier and I hope Natallia, and everyone else who donated for the first time at this session, will be giving blood now for years to come.”
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