Congratulations to Gold Award Girl Scout Emma Beach for being selected as GSSEM’s 2025 Young Woman of Distinction!
Pumping Pups
A dog lover all her life, Emma Beach was astonished to discover about the critical national shortage of canine blood donations and lack of knowledge surrounding the topic.
According to her research, as of 2023, 66% of U.S. households (86.9 million homes) own a pet. Dogs are the most popular pet in the U.S.; (with) 65.1 million U.S. households owning a dog. (Forbes, 2023).
She also knows that many of those dogs are beloved family pets, with owners who take great care of their health and would spare no expense if they get sick or injured.
With that thought in mind, Emma decided to develop an online database connecting canine blood banks across the country. The result, www.PumpingPups.org, provides a list of 40 canine blood donation centers in communities across 27 states in the United States.
Canine Blood Bank
Emma’s wanted to let dog owners about the need and give them the opportunity to donate blood.
Through her connections with Oakland Veterinary Referral Service, (OVRS), she learned that OVRS has 75 canine donors that donate quarterly to their in-house blood bank. A donor dog can donate one pint of blood per session.
Those donations provided more than 400 blood transfusions per year and saved many canine lives (OVRS, 2023). However, they typically collect about 300 pints per year, with one pint of blood helping between one and five dogs.
More is always needed, she discovered.
To get the word out, she passed out educational cards to veterinary clinics, dog parks, and pet stores and posted details on social media platforms. Emma connected with the American Red Cross with the idea of promoting canine blood donations to potential dog owners donating blood.
Emma also created a nationwide canine blood product inventory system to help streamline the process of finding canine blood products around the country.
Emma graduated from Rochester Adams High School. She was in Troop 70738. She plans on attending Michigan State University- Lyman Briggs College, studying animal science.
Find out more
Emma chats about her Gold Award project on our YouTube channel.
Visit www.gssem.org/highestawards to learn more about the Girl Scout Gold Awards.
