Senior Accounting Assistant at the College of Technology and Innovation, Margaret Lacerenza, received the 2012 Hero Award last month for her work in coordinating five staff and faculty geared blood drives on the Tempe campus. With her recent move to the Polytechnic campus she aspires to continue her work with this charity by one day bringing the blood drive bus to this location. (Photo by Jessie Wardarski)A trophy sits proudly in Accounting Assistant Senior Maggie Lacerenza’s new office at the College of Technology and Innovation at the Polytechnic campus. It reads “Hero Award” with her name underneath.
This is the most prestigious of the awards given by United Blood Services to blood drive coordinators who host five or more drives in a single year and schedule them on Mondays, Fridays or Saturdays.
Lacerenza, who became a coordinator last year, received her award last month and is now ready to organize drives at her new campus. She moved from the Tempe campus to the Polytechnic campus on Monday.
“I’ve been donating since 1987,” she said. “Every eight weeks, I’m donating blood.”
Lacerenza’s passion began when she donated blood for the first time while working for America West Airlines, now US Airways. Her employers organized a drive at the office and encouraged staff to participate. After that, she was hooked.
Lacerenza had been driving to a UBS site and realized it would be much more convenient if she could donate at work. She thought other faculty and staff members would feel the same way.
“ASU holds a lot of blood drives, but mostly for students,” she said. “I had started from the aspect of going to the staff and trying to get more faculty and staff involvement.”
Once she became a coordinator and was able to ensure the UBS bus would be parked near her office, she began to walk the halls and knock on every door in her building trying to convince colleagues to donate. Later, she sent emails and even held drawings where she handed out prizes she bought herself.
Lacerenza was present at almost all of the five drives she coordinated.
“I took vacation time, so it was my own time to participate,” she said. “It was mostly getting staff aware that we were going to have this bus onsite. If you make it convenient and easy to get to, then you’re more likely to go and participate.”
Lacerenza plans to coordinate drives with the bus on the Polytechnic campus, which has held four drives each year for more than 20 years. UBS holds the drives in the Polytechnic campus in one of the ballrooms.
Blood Systems Donor Recruiter Janet Pearson, who oversees most drives at ASU, said donating blood is the only way to truly help patients in the hospital, and Lacerenza has done a great job promoting that concept.
Lacerenza received the award, because she created a whole new donor base and UBS wanted to recognize that, Pearson said.
“Maggie is wonderful,” she said. “She really believes in the cause of donating blood and how it helps the community, the hospitals and the patients.”
When Lacerenza found out she would be at a the Polytechnic campus, she called Pearson to tell her she would continue to be a coordinator.
“The idea is to carry it forward,” Lacerenza said. “You just do it.”
Lacerenza is sure the convenience of having the bus at the campus will guarantee more donors.
“It’s a neon sign for anybody seeing that bus,” she said. “The bus is really a big advertisement.”
Pearson said the Polytechnic campus will greatly benefit from Lacerenza’s work and will probably host a drive each month.
Lacerenza has been working at ASU for six years and, since the beginning, she realized there was a big opportunity to create a new donor pool.
The motivation behind her passion is a willingness to help others, she said.
“It’s just been stories of … people I have met through United Blood Services whose lives have been impacted by blood transfusions,” she said. “When you donate blood, you know it’s going to be given to someone, and it’s going to save or prolong their life.”
She said she would like to get ASU President Michael Crow to go to a bus and donate blood.
“What kind of goodwill would generate among staff and students if you saw Michael Crow out there?” she said. “This is something that requires no money; it just requires people’s time.”
Lacerenza said she did not know about the hero award before receiving it and was very surprised and humbled when she found out.
Last year, ASU held 61 drives, but most of them were organized with students in mind.
“I just did this for the passion of doing it,” she said. “I’m not really good on the limelight. I work behind the scenes, and I do what I do, because it’s the right thing to do.”
Lacerenza’s son, communication senior Mitchell Lacerenza, and her husband were present during the ceremony.
Mitchell, who donates every chance he gets, said he feels very proud of his mother, and he believes she’ll be as successful at the Polytechnic campus as she was in Tempe.
“(The award) is one more thing she can add to the list of the amazing things that she does every day,” he said. “Prepare yourselves; she’ll do wonders.”
Lacerenza plans to keep donating and coordinating the drives for as long as she can.
“We all need each other,” she said. “There’s a lot of people who do blood drives around the Valley. I’m no different.”
Reach the reporter at dpbaltaz@asu.edu or follow her on Twitter @dpalomabp
