The Red Cross is well known for hosting blood drives and other community projects; however, lesser known is the National Red Cross Month. The Grand Valley State University Red Cross club will teach students how to perform citizen cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on March 25 in the Kirkhof Center as a part of this month-long focus.

The club is hosting this event in honor of March being National Red Cross Month. Citizen CPR, also known as hands-only CPR, can help people survive emergency situations while waiting for further help. Members of the Red Cross club and Morgan Beeler, a member of the Grand Rapids Red Cross chapter, will teach students how to properly perform citizen CPR.

Bradley Ophoff, vice president of the GVSU Red Cross club, said the club focuses on volunteering and giving back to the community. He said the organization focuses on providing members with new opportunities to volunteer throughout the year, both on and off campus.

“We focus on working with our Greater Grand Rapids Chapter of the American Red Cross to provide members a way to volunteer through the American Red Cross,” Ophoff said.

He added that he wants to find new ways to involve the Red Cross with GVSU. The club is looking into creating new fundraising events in order to have more volunteering opportunities available for club members and GVSU students. He said the club plans to participate in Relay for Life in April.

Additionally, GVSU has partnerships with the American Red Cross and Michigan Blood to host monthly blood drives on both the Allendale Campus and the Pew Campus in the Richard M. DeVos Center and Cook-DeVos Center. Blood drives will take place on March 25 in Room 2204 and April 15 in Room 2250 of the Kirkhof Center.

Shannon Riffel, Community Service Learning Center staff assistant, said the office coordinates all the blood drives.

Each March, the Community Service Learning Center holds a lottery for the following academic year. Any student organizations wishing to host a blood drive must be willing to provide volunteers for the day of the drive, help promote the event and they must communicate with the Red Cross.

For more information of events through the Red Cross in the Grand Rapids and surrounding areas, visit www.redcross.org/mi/grand-rapids.