Donate Personal Protective Equipment

As Covid-19 spread across the country, frontline health-care workers sounded the alarm that an inadequate supply of personal protective equipment, known as PPE, was putting their lives at risk.

In response, people on campuses headed to now-quiet labs, manufacturing shops, athletic-training facilities, art studios, theater departments, and libraries. At large universities and small colleges, they raided supply closets and emptied shelves.

James Aronson, Tufts U.

A small crew of essential workers at the Georgia Institute of Technology pulled together 167,900 gloves, more than 3,700 surgical and N95 masks, 6,000 shoe covers, and thousands of other items like protective coveralls and cleaning supplies. Tufts University donated thousands of pieces of PPE and loaned ventilators from its veterinary school. Trinity Washington University also shared a ventilator, along with masks, goggles, gloves, gowns, and booties.

Washington & Jefferson College, in Pennsylvania, counted 100 pairs of lab goggles and 30,000 pairs of latex gloves, while Hood College, in Maryland, donated six bins of equipment, including pocket-sized hand sanitizers left over from a marketing campaign. While the bulk of Brandeis University’s donated items came from science labs, art studios and the theater department also contributed masks. Kara McClurken, director of preservation services at the University of Virginia Library, turned over her department’s supply of masks, goggles, and gloves, which they use when materials have been exposed to mold.

And Ellen Farrelly, a chemical-engineering major at Manhattan College, realized that a big sweep for PPE might have missed some research labs. With the help of administrators, professors, graduate students, and a public-safety officer, she returned to campus and secured an additional five boxes of face masks and 50 boxes of disposable gloves for donation to hospitals and extended-care facilities.

“I felt so helpless, sitting at home,” says Farrelly. “I just started thinking about all those gloves.”

How is your institution contributing to the “war effort” against the coronavirus? Tell us here.