Feeling otherwise helpless in the face of yesterday's terrorist attacks, members of the Penn community mobilized to volunteer the only resource they had -- their blood.
But many were met with some disappointment.
Despite rumors to the contrary, the Red Cross is not operating blood donation centers at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania or the emergency information site at Houston Hall.
"The hospital itself isn't equipped or allowed to gather blood for use outside the hospital," HUP spokesman Greg Lester said.
And according to Maria Stearns, spokeswoman for the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, information given by the regional Red Cross center that the fifth floor of CHOP will serve as a donation center is false.
"We are not a blood drive center," she said.
Members of the Penn community who sought to donate blood yesterday were instructed to go to the Musser Blood Center at 700 Spring Garden Street. Donors reportedly waited up to three hours to donate, according to Musser Center receptionist Theresa McElroy.
However, in anticipation of a serious blood shortage, members of the Penn community may donate blood at several temporary blood donation centers in University City through the weekend, though not at any Penn facility.
Additional donation centers operated yesterday -- and will continue to operate through the week -- at the Urban Education Center at 46th and Market streets and at the Allegheny Valley Schools at 9990 Verree Road.
Al Filreis, director of the Kelly Writer's House and member of Penn Faculty and Staff for Neighborhood Issues, said that he attempted to give blood yesterday at the Urban Education Center, but was turned away.
"They wouldn't take us because it was too crowded," Filreis said.
Several Penn student groups -- as well as University President Judith Rodin -- have directed members of the University community who want to get involved to the Red Cross.
But many students said that rumors and false notices circulating through student e-mail listservs that indicated CHOP as a donation site only led them to disappointment.
"Someone came and knocked on our door and told us to go to CHOP," College freshman Pamela Russell said.
But Russell said that once she and her roommate arrived at the hospital, they were turned away.
Maureen Clionsky, also a College freshman, said she waited at Houston Hall where she had heard a blood donation center was being set up.
"There's a lot of confusion," she said. "We want to give blood and they don't really know where to send us."
In Manhattan, hundreds of donors began to line up at centers almost immediately following the attack. The Red Cross -- which says the effort will muster 50,000 units of blood to ship to New York and Washington -- experienced overflowing blood donation centers all over the region.
