Joe Cianciotto is looking for Health Care Workers in Long Island Fighting COVID-19 in need of PPE
Industry: Business
Joe Cianciotto, a local Long Islander who hails from Garden City, New York, recently put together an effort to donate more than 4,000 face shields to health care workers battling the global COVID-19 pandemic from the frontlines and is now looking to get the word out to local first responders who are needing this protective gear and can not get it readily right now.
New York, New York (PRUnderground) May 7th, 2020
Joe Cianciotto started his effort on a Facebook page for residents of Garden City with the group’s support. The hashtag for the initiative is #ShieldThesefaces. Currently there is a website set-up at https://www.supportgclocal.com/shield-these-faces where individual first responders can submit their name, what healthcare organization they work with and contact info and Cianciotto will arrange pick ups for them to receive PPE in denominations of 5, 10 & 20 at a time.
The motivation to launch this initiative came to Cianciotto when he learned that hospitals and first responders lacked personal protective equipment, or PPE. Specifically, they had limited supplies of face shields. In fact, in some situations, according to Cianciotto, they had to share their limited PPE supplies with one another. His goal was to get health care workers, including nurses and doctors, the PPE they needed to protect themselves while treating patients who desperately needed their help.
Thanks to the residents of Garden City, Cianciotto has been able to raise more than $12,000. The first push of 1,500 face shields, which went to medical care workers at Mineola’s New York University Winthrop Hospital.
Following this drop off Cianciotto organized a curbside PPE pickup in the back parking lot of the Mineola Courthouse. There Joe set up a tent, then administered face shields from the tent to first responders and health care workers who drove by it in their cars. He was able to give out almost 1,000 face shields, which came in boxes of between 5, 10 and 20 shields.
Joe Cianciotto said that what came out of this opportunity to speak directly with first responders and health care workers was the realization that because of some of the procurement systems in place in certain hospitals the challenge had become less about supply and more about the process that seemed to be getting in the way of putting this equipment in the hands of the folks who desperately need it. To remedy this he has now switched his efforts exclusively to connecting with those that need it most desperately via the newly created website. Cianciotto intends to keep this going for as long as his supply lasts.
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