Gloves. Masks. Gowns. And antiviral spray.
It came by the box load. It came on trucks and in cars. It came from offices large and small.
And by the end of day Monday, a veritable mountain of personal protective equipment destined for Waterloo Region’s front-line healthcare workers was stacked high in the curling club lounge at the Westmount Golf & Country Club, the end result of a determined community-wide drive to help in the battle against COVID-19.
“This is huge. This is an incredible amount. We are blown away,” said Dr. Neil Naik, physician advisor at The eHealth Centre of Excellence and one of the equipment drive organizers.
Final numbers were still being adjusted at time of writing, but Naik said to his knowledge, organizers had received:
- 1,095 boxes of gloves, with each box containing 100 gloves.
- 2,183 boxes of masks, including surgical masks and the highly-coveted N95 masks.
- 522 surgical gowns
- 40 bottles of anti-virus spray.
“Those are big numbers,” said Naik.
The scene inside Westmount Golf
& Country Club Monday, which received
donations of personal protective
equipment from across Waterloo Region.
(Photo courtesy of Amber French)
The drive was co-ordinated by Catalyst Capital, which is housed at Catalyst137, and Communitech. Catalyst Capital was co-founded by Amber French and Kurtis McBride. McBride is the CEO of IoT firm Miovision.
“The response was amazing,” said French. “We live in such a great community. It’s always just overwhelming how involved Kitchener-Waterloo wants to get.
“We want to rally around our frontline workers and keep them as safe as they’re keeping us.”
French said that the community additionally received a donation of three pallets of N95 masks from 3M; some 8,000 of the masks were included in the shipment.
Westmount Golf & Country Club General Manager Brad Duench said the donation traffic was steady all day despite the chilly, wet weather.
“I thought it went very well,” said Duench. “We got a lot of product donated, which was fantastic.” Duench said several members of the golf club volunteered their time to help receive donations.
The material will be warehoused at the club temporarily and then distributed where it’s needed.
French and Naik said organizations that made donations included Reliance Home Comfort, the local society of Chinese professors, P&P Optica, 2G Robotics, Ontario Autobody Supplies and the University of Waterloo.
Other organizations throughout Waterloo Region are stepping up, too.
Wilfrid Laurier University, for example, issued a release saying it had collected 12,000 N95 masks, 38,500 disposable gloves, 200 isolation gowns, plus surgical masks, plastic visors, goggles, hand sanitizer and test kits, all of it destined for Waterloo Region and Brant Community Health System facilities and clinics.
The equipment, the university said, was donated by Laurier’s Student Wellness Centres, the department of Safety, Health Environment and Risk Management and labs within the Faculty of Science.
Donations of personal protective equipment are being accepted for the rest of this week. Organizers recommend contacting Westmount Golf & Country Club beforehand if the quantities are large.
