Largest Turnout For Sac State Blood Drive

Over 800 Sac State students showed up to participate in the "Causeway Classic Blood Drive" this past Monday and Tuesday. This has been the largest number of participants up to date for this event.

Half an hour before the end of the event of Tuesday, the total amount of blood donors was 845 and the line was still out the door. In previous years, Sacramento State was only able to collect a little over 100 pints of blood each day. The goal this year was to collect 275 pints of blood each day and fortunately for Sac State they were able to accumulate over 400 pints of blood per day.

Sacramento State has joined with BloodSource in this year's blood drive which is also a competition against its biggest rival UC Davis.

BloodSource is a non-profit organization that has been committed to organizing blood drives since 1948 and today it is the source of blood used by over 40 hospitals in 25 Northern and Central California counties. BloodSource has two locations here in Sacramento and over a dozen more outside the Sacramento area.

Participants received tickets to an imax showing of "Wild Ocean 3D" and a free t-shirt for donating a pint of blood.

Ashley Repels from BloodSource recommended that participants eat a lot of food with iron and be well hydrated before donating blood because the biggest reason why people are disqualified for donating blood is low iron.

Student involvement has been a major factor in the success of this year's blood drive. Tim Gilmore, representative of BloodSource said that they have had a lot of help from student organizations.

"PR organizations, student fraternities, the Student Sikh society has been coming out, so we've had a lot of participation from both campus life and from BloodSource," Gilmore said.

Sac State Inagurates Digital Billboard

Sacramento State has presented for this fall semester a new form of artwork; an 85 foot digital billboard sign that will give the school a new landmark, more visibility, and above all; profit.

The new digital communications sign owned and built by Clear Channel Communications was erected this past summer and started operating on August 5th according to University Enterprises, Inc.

Clear Channel presented the idea to the University, paid for and created this structure and therefore they are the owners of it and not Sacramento State as some people may believe. Nonetheless, the sign features the Sacramento State logo, colors and name.

This state-of-the-art digital billboard will be used for commercial advertisements in which the University will receive a fraction of the profit.(most of the money will be It will also be used for university related messages that will promote events, and for law enforcement emergencies such as important traffic announcements but primarily amber alerts.

Sacramento State freshman Robert Garcia, shows his approval of the new sign and gives some reasons to why it was a good idea to bring this to his school. He mentions that people will be more informed of school events and that putting it in the view of drivers on Highway 50, many people will see it everyday and it will become a very effective for advertising.

In a time when communication and advertising has become an important part of our lives, Sacramento State University has taken a step to stay up to date by making profit through advertising as well as providing the community with a genuine piece of artwork.

The sign is 85 feet tall by 48 feet wide and has a double-sided message board with the latest in LED technology that eliminates glare and light leakage which were some of the problems associated with previous digital billboards.

For more information, this website is dedicated to this new digital sign and includes all the information and details about it.