O positive

I think almost everybody has a spirit of volunteerism--in other words, people generally want to give back to their community in some capacity. Donating money to charities directly, or through United Way, or a church; or volunteering time tutoring kids, or serving meals at a soup kitchen, or fundraising for a non-profit. If you're really dedicated, you might even move to a foreign country to reach out to people who don't have religious freedom.

Giving blood is in this same vein (pardon the pun) as volunteering time and money. Actually, I think it's an excellent alternative for students, parents, people who work alot—basically anyone who is strapped for time and/or money. You can go in for less than an hour and give one unit of blood that (at the SBC, at least) will be separated into all its different components and put into 4 different hospital patients. Depending on whether you give whole blood, or platelets, or plasma, your donation's monetary value is somewhere around $150-$300.

So, I'm not going to make all my visitors donate or anything. But I will say that the nurses are really good at the SBC, and you can choose to have a smaller needle if you want (it takes a little longer—mine took 9 minutes with the small needle), AND they give you a free cholesterol analysis, which other blood banks don't do. And of course they have the obligatory SWAG and cookies and juice. Just something to think about!