Upper School Students Organize Fundraiser for Supplies for Washington State Hospitals

Upper+School+Students+Organize+Fundraiser+for+Supplies+for+Washington+State+Hospitals

photo courtesy of Ava Filiss

Ava Filiss and Chris Lai

There is currently a large shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE), such as surgical masks, in the U.S. This has caused medical professionals to be restricted in their use of PPE. For example, some workers are required to reuse their protective equipment or be limited to only one mask per day. This puts both the medical professionals and their patients at risk of infection. However, in other countries, especially ones in which the pandemic has largely died down such as Hong Kong, face masks are more widely available.  

A couple weeks ago, with the help of Annie Wright’s HOSA-Future Health Professionals team, we created a plan to help provide PPE to local hospitals. We have now organized a fundraiser to raise money in order to ship surgical masks from Hong Kong to Tacoma, Washington. These masks will be distributed to Seattle Children’s Hospital and Tacoma General Hospital. Our goal is to raise $1000 in this round of fundraising, which we aim to achieve by May 24th, 2020.

Though we are in different places, Lake Tapps and Hong Kong, both of us are grateful to be able to give back to the Tacoma community that we are a part of. We are so happy to be able to use the resources that we have available to help others in a time of great need.

If you are able to donate to this fundraiser, please do. The link to the gofundme page is gf.me/u/xz3g2c. Even if you are unable to donate, sharing this fundraiser will allow more people to become aware of it and may also increase donations. We appreciate any support!