Blood and Beats: NCSC’s BDD’19
NUST Community Services Club held its semi-annual event, the Blood Donation Drive, which spanned for four full days i.e. 12th to 15th of November. It was a one-of-a-kind event which was eagerly awaited and greeted with open arms by the entire community at NUST.
Bright and early on the 12th of November, the camp for Blood Donation Drive was set up in its usual style in the Helipad Ground. One would imagine any process involving blood to be a gory one, but stepping into the zone of NCSC’s BDD was an entirely different experience. The staff was all helpful, the people with a spirit to serve, and the environment brimming with bliss. Present just at the heart of NUST, the camp pumped positive vibes all around. The theme for this semester’s BDD was centered on music, so every turn-up of the beat only resulted in turning up the motivation of people to donate more.
It was like a whole new world. The sign of BDD, related décor items, and a poster which said ‘keep the beat going’ hung on the entrance. The enthusiastic peeps not only kept it going for four days straight, but made sure it got stronger with each passing moment. This semester, donations went to Sundas Foundation, which is a thalassemia center in Islamabad. After entering the camp, the first step to take was to get registered. The process was easy, and the potential donors had to give their basic information for the records – coming up according to their token number. Next up came the screening test for checking weight and blood. (Disclaimer: If you have taken many tests in life like me, but somehow always fail this one despite passing the others, don’t lose hope. There is always another semester: Apna time ayega, you know..) Finally, the person deemed eligible would lie down on one of the spare beds and donate blood, with their friends around for support (and to collect snap-worthy or meme material, of course).
The donors would then leave with their refreshments or just hang around to soak in all the happy vibes of the camp. Oh, and did I mention the chart where they had to list their name according to their school? Yeah, it was that: the beat drop award which was bagged by S3H. *cough* Even though it seemed like SEECS was winning because bro, its beat was turned up way high. Anyways, sigh… *cough*
One of the most striking things about this BDD was the change of venue midway from the Helipad Ground to all the way to NMC (NUST Medical Center, mind you). The entire ordeal did not pacify the enthusiasm of the people, but only made it grow more, as the whole NUST beat as one. The graph of the number of pints collected increased steadily, all the way till it broke the previous record of 604, and set a new one: a whopping 625 number of pints!
Winter is coming for sure, but it is always reassuring to know that the hearts are warm, and BDD was a beautiful place to witness that.
