Big Load 4,200 Face Shields to 2 Bay Area Hospitals

Oakland, CA – A caravan of 14 cars of parents and high school students traveled to San Francisco and San Leandro in duel drop offs to donate 4,200 face shields and 1,400 face masks in one week to Zuckerberg San Francisco General and Alameda Health Systems. They were met with an enthusiastic crowd of ER health care workers who have been receiving donations from the group since mid-March.

By this past Friday, It Takes A Village Bay Area, a community group of over 200 volunteers, has donated just to the 2 hospitals alone:

4,600 Face Shields

8,875 Fabric Face Masks

4,000 KN95

10,000 latex gloves

To date, the group has donated 22,735 masks to primarily local public hospitals, New York and Navajo Nation.

Founder Shelly Wong of It Takes A Village Bay Area, “It is a thrill to be met with such an enthusiastic crowd of health care workers and to see the smiles on their faces as they open the cartons and see the face masks and shields. We are working on increasing donations to us of cash donations, absent that, we are grateful for in-kind donations of fabric, face shield material, cardboard cartons, or PPE so we can reach more communities of need. We make donations almost every day. ”

It Takes A Village Bay Area has set up a GoFundMe to help offset costs associated with the mask and face shield production. Donations are tax deductible through the fiscal agent TMC Community Capital, an Oakland based micro-loan provider.

To donate, go to GOFUNDME page:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/making-and-donating-face-masks-and-face-shields

Website:

https://www.it-takes-a-village.org/

It Takes A Village Bay Area has partnered with Bryan and Michelle Walker, co-founders of Bryn Walker, a women's clothing company located in Berkeley, California, who donated the majority of fabric and elastic. The It Takes A Village Bay Area Bryn Walker masks are distinctive in their stylish fabric offerings and 100% made in the USA woven cotton fabric.

The group also donated quantities to the City and County of San Francisco, the SF Sheriff’s Department and the City of Oakland to be distributed to communities in need. San Francisco Mayor London Breed and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf are both photographed wearing stylish It Takes A Village Bay Area Bryn Walker fabric face masks to encourage Universal Masking in their communities.

The group received the recent donation of 5,000 face shields from LTA Research & Exploration and worked to build the kits and pack them in less than a week for delivery direct to the hospitals. A multitude of local moving companies helped the group source cardboard cartons to pack the shields, 50 each.

To date, donations include the following local hospitals and hospital systems:

Alameda Health Systems (requested 8,000 face masks), Zuckerberg San Francisco General, Santa Clara Valley County Medical, Palo Alto VA, Martinez VA, Laguna Honda, Chinese Hospital -SF, Sutter Health San Francisco, and Mission Neighborhood Health Center, San Francisco, UCSF San Francisco.

It Takes A Village Bay Area is a volunteer group of 200 people, including over 100 home sewists, using their time while sheltering in place to make masks and face shields for healthcare workers. The group also repackages and distributes donated hand sanitizer, and PPE to hospitals in need.