Five local high schools are rolling up their sleeves to help meet Canada's demand for blood donations.
The Young Blood for Life is a national program that encourages high school students to recruit their friends, teachers and family members to give blood in a friendly competition against other local high schools.
Schools that manage to collect the most donations and recruit the highest number of new donors are then awarded cash prizes to be used for school initiatives.
Savannah Elliot-Ball, 16, and Rachel Andreychuk, 17, are the youth development champions for Kelly Road high school and are in charge of collecting donors from around their community.
"We co-ordinate our school for the blood drive and rally students and their families and friends to donate blood," said Andreychuk.
Young Blood for Life aims to collect 11,917 units of blood and gain 5,425 new donors between Oct. 5 and May 31, 2012.
"I think it's becoming more important for young people to donate blood because then when we get older there will be more people to donate blood," said Elliot-Ball.
"If we start getting kids donating blood now, then they are more likely to keep donating blood for the rest of their lives. It's important to get started at a young age," said Andreychuk.
The two students are in charge of filling four appointments every week for the duration of the challenge. Last year, the school only brought in 23 donations.
"We are hoping to triple it and exceed all expectations," said Andreychuk, who isn't a stranger to donating blood.
"I've been coming here forever with my dad, because he has always donated blood. So I've always been interested in doing it when I turned 17, and then when it came up in leadership [class] I really wanted to help organize it."
This will be the third year the challenge has run in Prince George and every year the challenge brings in more donors.
"Every year, Prince George has done phenomenally by getting the word out and putting us on a national stage," said Tamara Sweet, partnership specialist, Canadian Blood Services.
The top school in Prince George will earn $150 for their school with the potential to win the provincial prize of another $150.
The top schools in the province get a chance to compete on the national level and compete for $500.
Canadian Blood Services forecasts that patients in hospitals across Canada will use approximately 594,000 units of blood during the challenge period.
For more information on donating blood visit www.blood.ca or contact 1-888-2-DONATE.
