MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) - The University of Wisconsin-Madison won the Big Ten “We Give Blood Drive” competition, earning $1 million that will go toward student or community health initiatives.

The competition , sponsored by Abbott, challenged all Big Ten schools to collect the most blood donations to help address the nationwide blood shortage.

UW-Madison and Badger supporters collected more than 15,000 blood donations.

The University of Nebraska placed second in the competition, while the University of Michigan finished third.

Each blood donation could help save up to three lives, according to Abbott data. Overall, the competition had 83,043 blood donations, which adds up to helping save more than 249,000 lives.

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