A Helping Hand & A Mask to Match

Madison Kim, current Master of Biomedical Discovery and Commercialization (MBDC) student, saw a rapidly changing world devastated by the spread of COVID-19, and had to act. Her cousin, a doctor in the United States was at the mercy of a dwindling Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) supply crisis, so she found the perfect organization to focus her efforts and help protect healthcare and frontline workers across the US and Canada.

Mask Match is a peer-to-peer platform assisting in the delivery of spare PPE (N95, surgical and home-made masks) from donors directly to frontline workers in hospitals, EMTs/paramedics, long-term care workers, dentists, law enforcement, therapy centres, pharmacies and many more.

Madison went to work with Mask Match, tracking their available supply of PPE, and liaising with donors and recipients to ensure the crucial PPE was going where it was needed most.

Over 3 months, Mask Match has successfully sent 821,000 masks from 6,200 donors to 7,300 recipients across the US and Canada. Due to the success of Mask Match’s endeavours, their site has stopped operating as PPE supplies have become more stable; this is truly a mark of their mission accomplished! While the fight against COVID-19 continues to wage, they have joined forces with the organization, GetUsPPE, which strives to support healthcare workers throughout future waves of the virus.

“Protecting the healthcare workers and relieving the PPE crisis would not have been possible without those who donated unused masks and those who worked towards facilitating the delivery of PPE” notes Madison, recognizing the vast efforts of all those who’ve contributed to Mask Match’s cause. Madison also reminds us that “wearing masks and following social distancing policies are critical to support the safety of communities”.

The BDC Program truly commends your invaluable contributions Madison, in mitigating the spread of COVID-19. As Madison has shared, “it is important to appreciate all the frontline workers who are combatting COVID-19”. Thank you for helping to protect those who protect all of us everyday!

For more information on Mask Match and GetUsPPE, please visit their website.