“They asked me if I was a representative from a company and I told them that it was a collective effort of artists, craftspeople and people from our community who wanted to help.”
Local film production artist Jessica Wegrzyn is reminding us we can do more than just stay home. Amidst a sudden shutdown of so many industries including her own, she didn’t lament. She did what she could and asked her network of other artists to do theirs. That’s a Buffalo citizen move, folks.
With increasing supply challenges for acquiring healthcare Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), ECMC is seeking community support as we look at every opportunity to protect our caregivers: https://t.co/dqzGxaImsU pic.twitter.com/zmvjYFE2A8
— ECMC Buffalo (@ECMCBuffalo) March 21, 2020
ECMC is seeking any N95 and Non-N95 mask donations, and N95 masks that are in high need include 3M, 1860 model, sizes regular and small.
To contact ECMC, contact hospitalcommandcenter@ecmc.edu or call 716-898-3844.
“I realized I had cleaning supplies, hand sanitizer, alcohol and most importantly protective masks and gloves in my work kit. I work as a textile artist in film meaning I breakdown the clothing to make things look old and lived in so I use a lot of toxic chemicals. I worked a big job last summer and had left over supplies. I opened bins that were stored away for my next job, jobs that I knew wouldn’t be coming any time soon. My heart fell into my stomach when I realized that I had a box of unopened n95 masks and a box of vinyl gloves. It honestly felt like I won the lottery. I think I screamed.”
“It hit me that many other crafts people, artists and makers probably had this kind of stuff at home so I just threw up a post on my personal, private instagram and within a couple hours a dozen people reached out and even more people shared my post. I didn’t even know where to donate them. My friend works at ECMC and posted that they were going to run out really soon and listed a very specific list of what they were looking for so I used his list as a resource and just started collecting donations. By Sunday I had a trunk full of masks and and gloves and more and more people were reaching out and sharing my post, offering to buy me a tank of gas. It honestly blew me away.”
Thank you, Jess! And those who went out of their way to deliver supplies to her, or directly to local hospitals. If our healthcare workers go down, we all go down. They, and the people supporting them, are real-life heroes at a time like this.
