Update: We’re Pivoting to Better Protect Healthcare Workers
Burlington, VT. April 19, 2020. Healthcare workers need more personal protective equipment (PPE), as soon as possible. Therefore, we are pivoting our Gowns4Good strategy to expedite the delivery of graduation gowns: asking donors to ship gowns directly to medical facilities.
Although we began this initiative knowing that hospitals have limited bandwidth, and that fielding donations of one or two gowns at a time was simply not feasible for most facilities, we thought our value add would be that of “consolidator” — you ship your donation to us, and we batch in larger shipments and mail to facilities that have requested gowns. Simple.
A great example of how to batch gowns right in your community, Connecticut-based Pomfret Community School hosted a social-distanced "drive-through" and collected 112 gowns from 37 donors.
But the increasing number of medical facilities that are running out of PPE and rapidly loosening restrictions has meant that our request numbers are through the roof. So we’re holding firm our mission to protect healthcare workers, but have decided that it’s time for us to pivot. The time a gown spends in transit from your closet, to our “headquarters,” and then to a medical facility is time NOT spent protecting a healthcare worker in need.
Instead, we’d like to get donated gowns into the hands of medical providers as quickly as possible, cutting out all unnecessary middle steps. Therefore, we are (1) asking medical facilities to confirm they are able to receive smaller shipments of gowns and (2) instructing all gown donations be mailed directly to accepting medical facilities.
To help make this smoother, we encourage our donors to batch their donations with friends, family, and neighbors (in a way that is safe and compliant with CDC social distancing guidelines). Additionally, if medical facilities are not able to receive smaller shipments for logistical reasons, we ask that they contact us so we can find the best way to help them. [Please note: gowns previously shipped to Gowns4Good will continue to be expedited to requesting medical facilities.]
At Gowns4Good, we’re committed to protecting healthcare workers, and we believe this pivot will help us do that better. Now that the call for help is greater than ever — will you join us?