South Florida, Our Hospitals Need Protective Masks
Donation protected
COVID-19 has created a global healthcare crisis that’s disrupted the medical supply chain causing a lack of critical protective gear in hospitals. This crisis has created a shadowy market of brokers, hoarders and other profiteers that are buying up supplies across the world to sell at multiple times the original prices. The effects are being felt across South Florida as hospitals scramble to find protective masks for our community doctors, nurses, and staff.
Our team has committed to providing the needed aid to hospitals across South Florida by donating the urgently needed protective masks. We’ve launched a South Florida focused fundraiser called COVID 19 SOFLA Mask Fund in partnership with Global Empowerment Mission (GEM), a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization founded in 2011.
Under this effort, 100% of your donations go directly for the purchase and delivery of the personal protective equipment (PPE) for the healthcare professionals fighting this dangerous virus in the South Florida hospitals.
For every $15-20K we are able to deliver a blended package of masks (3M N95, Surgical masks and KN95) to one South Florida Hospital.
Please make a tax-deductible donation in any amount to help fight COVID19 in our South Florida community directly to the non-profit: http://donate.soflamaskfund.com
For simplicity, donations may also be made through this GoFundMe page for the non-profit.
For large donors, you can structure the donation and earmark to a hospital of your choice. We take care of it from the beginning till the end for you. Please email [email redacted] to coordinate.
South Florida - we cannot sit by and allow this to continue in our community, we must act, we must come together, and we must provide the desperately needed personal protective gear for our first responders and medical staff.
It’s a simple ask, please donate now to the fund, and/or help spread the word so that we as a community can support those who are fighting each day to keep our families healthy.
Additional Details Below
What is the plan?
We are immediately seeking $250K to support at least 10 hospitals in our community. Rather than wait for the full amount, we are able to begin providing mask donations to South Florida hospitals for every $15-20K that is raised.
The partnership with GEM has provided key logistics and nonprofit infrastructure. This enables our team to focus primarily on coordinating donors and making hospital mask donations. GEM has committed to supporting 250 hospitals nationwide, and our team is focused on providing the critical support for hospitals in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.
What types of masks?
Based on feedback from the hospitals on the current shortage, we’ve decided to expand the scope of donations to include N95 respirators. Our partnership with GEM, has enabled us to source both surgical masks & N95 respirators directly in South Florida for immediate delivery to hospitals.
Why do we do this?
If any of us get sick, we go to the hospital to seek medical care. As we have seen all over the world, doctors and nurses lack critical supplies and protective gear which impacts the level of care they can provide. First responders and front-line medical personnel have a specific set of skills that we as a community, rely on. It’s time that we as a community harness our other skills to support our medical professionals and contribute to this ongoing battle.
As members of the Miami community, we are also responsible to protect our community. Right now, we have to do whatever possible to provide the necessary protective gear and equipment to protect those who are protecting us. As the situation escalates, our doctors and nurses in South Florida will be in the urgent need of medical protective gear, let’s get them at least the surgical masks so that they can protect themselves as well as their patients from spreading the virus all around.
Who is behind this?
James and Jitka run the Czech the Cake, our online dessert shop. Like many of you, our business has been prevented from fully operating because of the negative impacts that COVID19 brought into our society. As residents of Miami, we feel compelled to apply our skills of operations and distribution to support the community. The faster we beat this virus, the faster we can all get back to running our businesses. www.czechthecake.com
Marialejandra Portal is a third year at NYU double majoring in Politics and Spanish on the pre-law track. I am currently a legal intern at The Sony Corporation of America and assist a teacher in a public school through a program called America Reads.
Jason Shavelson is a South Florida business man with a focus on technology and revenue cycle management in the healthcare industry. Right way billing is a leader in medical billing and QRLabs is a software company leveraging QR code’s for marketing purposes and to enable a unique hands off interaction.
Global Empowerment Mission is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 2011. Conceived in 1999 when Founder/Director Michael Capponi got his feet wet helping the victims of the Kosovo crisis. GEM's founding board members have been involved in supporting some of the most significant global tragedies over the last decade, personally assisting in over 200 various aid relief trips around the world. www.globalempowermentmission.org
How urgent is it?
You can decide for yourself, here are a few of the recent troubling headlines:
“not all staff have adequate protection and they’re urging Miami VA hospital officials to provide protective gear, including N95 masks, goggles and gowns, for all healthcare workers as well as universal testing to slow the spread of the deadly virus” - Miami Herald April 9, 2020
"This is all being mismanaged, and we’re being put at risk unnecessarily," said Barry Schapiro, an orthopedic surgeon practicing in Palm Beach, Fla. “We had ample time to prepare. It didn’t have to be like this.” - Kasier Health News April 9th 2020
“Every state is scrambling for the same thing now. New public health models released Sunday predict that COVID-19 cases will continue to climb in Florida and across much of the nation for the rest of the month. But Florida’s late start in obtaining medical supplies may have put it at a distinct disadvantage.” Miami Herald April 8th 2020
“The chaotic race to procure such supplies has also drawn fraudsters looking to hoard items and resell the equipment at a steep price.” NY Times April 6th 2020
“We do not have sufficient masks,” a Miami nurse wrote in the survey. “We are reusing masks for multiple patients.” - NBC 6 Miami April 2, 2020
“Broward Health Medical Center, one of the 10 largest health systems in the U.S. is not following the Centers for Disease Control and Protection guidelines because they are running out of face masks.” Miami Herald March 21, 2020
Personal Note
Jitka is Czech and James is Floridian. We have been living in Downtown Miami for over 3 years now. Part of our family still lives in the Czech Republic so we were closely watching the beginning of the COVID19 era in the EU, the methods of how to prevent spreading of the virus and what we, as a society, could do to help the government to fight it. As a result of our monitoring, no matter what we prepare for or how well we do it, the message from every single country is – lack of medical supplies - especially protective masks for the doctors and nurses taking care of the patients.
The Doctors & nurses in heavily impacted states such as Italy, Spain, or NY are begging for these supplies and they are not getting enough. There are many reasons to expect the same lack of supplies will happen in Miami as well. We should not expect to rely only on the federal government for support, let’s unite and help our community ourselves.
Miami is our home and the community we serve. Over the years, we’ve developed a strong network here. We feel it’s our obligation to connect our network to solve the pressing needs of our community. Miami, let’s get together and deliver these masks to the hospitals asap.
Sooner we can get through this emergency, the sooner we will be able to function, open our operations and produce value again. We do not want to live with such deep losses that this virus creates everywhere it comes. It is happening. Let’s try to stop it by supporting our medical professionals. Now. Thank you all who read this all the way here.
Our team has committed to providing the needed aid to hospitals across South Florida by donating the urgently needed protective masks. We’ve launched a South Florida focused fundraiser called COVID 19 SOFLA Mask Fund in partnership with Global Empowerment Mission (GEM), a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization founded in 2011.
Under this effort, 100% of your donations go directly for the purchase and delivery of the personal protective equipment (PPE) for the healthcare professionals fighting this dangerous virus in the South Florida hospitals.
For every $15-20K we are able to deliver a blended package of masks (3M N95, Surgical masks and KN95) to one South Florida Hospital.
Please make a tax-deductible donation in any amount to help fight COVID19 in our South Florida community directly to the non-profit: http://donate.soflamaskfund.com
For simplicity, donations may also be made through this GoFundMe page for the non-profit.
For large donors, you can structure the donation and earmark to a hospital of your choice. We take care of it from the beginning till the end for you. Please email [email redacted] to coordinate.
South Florida - we cannot sit by and allow this to continue in our community, we must act, we must come together, and we must provide the desperately needed personal protective gear for our first responders and medical staff.
It’s a simple ask, please donate now to the fund, and/or help spread the word so that we as a community can support those who are fighting each day to keep our families healthy.
Additional Details Below
What is the plan?
We are immediately seeking $250K to support at least 10 hospitals in our community. Rather than wait for the full amount, we are able to begin providing mask donations to South Florida hospitals for every $15-20K that is raised.
The partnership with GEM has provided key logistics and nonprofit infrastructure. This enables our team to focus primarily on coordinating donors and making hospital mask donations. GEM has committed to supporting 250 hospitals nationwide, and our team is focused on providing the critical support for hospitals in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.
What types of masks?
Based on feedback from the hospitals on the current shortage, we’ve decided to expand the scope of donations to include N95 respirators. Our partnership with GEM, has enabled us to source both surgical masks & N95 respirators directly in South Florida for immediate delivery to hospitals.
Why do we do this?
If any of us get sick, we go to the hospital to seek medical care. As we have seen all over the world, doctors and nurses lack critical supplies and protective gear which impacts the level of care they can provide. First responders and front-line medical personnel have a specific set of skills that we as a community, rely on. It’s time that we as a community harness our other skills to support our medical professionals and contribute to this ongoing battle.
As members of the Miami community, we are also responsible to protect our community. Right now, we have to do whatever possible to provide the necessary protective gear and equipment to protect those who are protecting us. As the situation escalates, our doctors and nurses in South Florida will be in the urgent need of medical protective gear, let’s get them at least the surgical masks so that they can protect themselves as well as their patients from spreading the virus all around.
Who is behind this?
James and Jitka run the Czech the Cake, our online dessert shop. Like many of you, our business has been prevented from fully operating because of the negative impacts that COVID19 brought into our society. As residents of Miami, we feel compelled to apply our skills of operations and distribution to support the community. The faster we beat this virus, the faster we can all get back to running our businesses. www.czechthecake.com
Marialejandra Portal is a third year at NYU double majoring in Politics and Spanish on the pre-law track. I am currently a legal intern at The Sony Corporation of America and assist a teacher in a public school through a program called America Reads.
Jason Shavelson is a South Florida business man with a focus on technology and revenue cycle management in the healthcare industry. Right way billing is a leader in medical billing and QRLabs is a software company leveraging QR code’s for marketing purposes and to enable a unique hands off interaction.
Global Empowerment Mission is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 2011. Conceived in 1999 when Founder/Director Michael Capponi got his feet wet helping the victims of the Kosovo crisis. GEM's founding board members have been involved in supporting some of the most significant global tragedies over the last decade, personally assisting in over 200 various aid relief trips around the world. www.globalempowermentmission.org
How urgent is it?
You can decide for yourself, here are a few of the recent troubling headlines:
“not all staff have adequate protection and they’re urging Miami VA hospital officials to provide protective gear, including N95 masks, goggles and gowns, for all healthcare workers as well as universal testing to slow the spread of the deadly virus” - Miami Herald April 9, 2020
"This is all being mismanaged, and we’re being put at risk unnecessarily," said Barry Schapiro, an orthopedic surgeon practicing in Palm Beach, Fla. “We had ample time to prepare. It didn’t have to be like this.” - Kasier Health News April 9th 2020
“Every state is scrambling for the same thing now. New public health models released Sunday predict that COVID-19 cases will continue to climb in Florida and across much of the nation for the rest of the month. But Florida’s late start in obtaining medical supplies may have put it at a distinct disadvantage.” Miami Herald April 8th 2020
“The chaotic race to procure such supplies has also drawn fraudsters looking to hoard items and resell the equipment at a steep price.” NY Times April 6th 2020
“We do not have sufficient masks,” a Miami nurse wrote in the survey. “We are reusing masks for multiple patients.” - NBC 6 Miami April 2, 2020
“Broward Health Medical Center, one of the 10 largest health systems in the U.S. is not following the Centers for Disease Control and Protection guidelines because they are running out of face masks.” Miami Herald March 21, 2020
Personal Note
Jitka is Czech and James is Floridian. We have been living in Downtown Miami for over 3 years now. Part of our family still lives in the Czech Republic so we were closely watching the beginning of the COVID19 era in the EU, the methods of how to prevent spreading of the virus and what we, as a society, could do to help the government to fight it. As a result of our monitoring, no matter what we prepare for or how well we do it, the message from every single country is – lack of medical supplies - especially protective masks for the doctors and nurses taking care of the patients.
The Doctors & nurses in heavily impacted states such as Italy, Spain, or NY are begging for these supplies and they are not getting enough. There are many reasons to expect the same lack of supplies will happen in Miami as well. We should not expect to rely only on the federal government for support, let’s unite and help our community ourselves.
Miami is our home and the community we serve. Over the years, we’ve developed a strong network here. We feel it’s our obligation to connect our network to solve the pressing needs of our community. Miami, let’s get together and deliver these masks to the hospitals asap.
Sooner we can get through this emergency, the sooner we will be able to function, open our operations and produce value again. We do not want to live with such deep losses that this virus creates everywhere it comes. It is happening. Let’s try to stop it by supporting our medical professionals. Now. Thank you all who read this all the way here.
Co-organizers (4)
Jitka Putra
Organizer
Miami, FL
Global Empowerment Mission
Beneficiary
James Putra
Co-organizer
Jason Shavelson
Co-organizer
Marialejandra Portal
Co-organizer