Chinese associations donate masks, face shields to county nursing homes and assisted-living facilities

Posted

On behalf of my Chinese scholars association, in partnership with a Chinese American friendship association, I am pleased to announce the donation of 1,500 surgical masks, 500 KN95 masks and 400 face shields to be used at 17 of Chatham County’s nursing homes and assisted-living facilities.

I am a visiting scholar at Duke University and the vice president of the North Carolina Chinese Scholars Sino-US Exchange Association (NCCSEA).

Why the donation? I believe in the aspiration: “One world, one community.”

Allow me to introduce the president and co-founder of my association, Zhaohui Wang, who is the executive director of the Woo Center for Big Data and Precision Medicine at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering.

Our association joined forces with the Chinese American Friendship Association of North Carolina (CAFA-NC), whose president is Jianping Yang, a principal software engineer at SAS, based in Cary.

“In an effort to support and help our community to combat the COVID-19 virus,” Yang said, “we, the Chinese American Friendship Association of North Carolina, are working with other community organizations like NCCSEA to encourage and accept donations to purchase PPEs, such as face masks and shields, for medical professionals in need and families with difficulties to access the equipment.”

Thanks to Bill Horner III, publisher and editor of the Chatham News + Record, our two association presidents and I were able to deliver the PPE donations on May 7, to the Chatham County Agriculture Conference Center in Pittsboro, where we met Steve Newton, director of Chatham County Emergency Management.

“It was a very impressive experience to donate the PPEs to Chatham County,” Yang said. “Steve Newton helped us a lot. We really appreciate his hard work at facilitating the donations.”

Newton recommended 17 locations that could use the masks or face shields, or both, including Siler City’s Genesis Healthcare, the Pines at Carolina Meadows, Pittsboro Christian Village, Fairways, Galloway Ridge, Cambridge Hills, Chatham Ridge and Coventry House.

We were very careful to get certification of the quality of the PPE, particularly the KN95 masks, from the manufacturer in China. The cost of having the materials shipped to the U.S. was double the cost of the PPE itself.

So far CAFA has tallied $102,390 in donations ($75,000 in cash, plus payments in kind) from Fujian Chinese business owners, the Cheng-du 7 Restaurant, Kings Park International Church Chinese Congregation and other individuals and organizations to provide Personal Protective Equipment and food to 18 recipients, including Wake Food Security, Duke University Hospital and police and fire departments, plus customers at four large stores selling essential items.

In all CAFA has joined with NCCSEA and 17 other sponsoring organizations, including the North Carolina Chinese Business Association, the Global Education Institute, the Chinese School at Chapel Hill and the Raleigh Academy of Chinese Language.

As a journalism professor, I was honored to work with a newspaper editor like Bill Horner III, who is committed not only to providing essential news and information to the citizens of Chatham County but also to doing whatever he can to ensure their personal safety during a pandemic.

“We are very grateful for Bill’s assistance,” Wang said. “We really want to express that the Chinese-American community is struggling to help against COVID-19. We believe, Together, we are stronger.”

Siqi Zhang is an associate professor and doctoral supervisor in the School of Journalism and Communication at Jilin University in Changchun, China. She is vice director of the Institute of Chinese Culture at her university. At present, she is a visiting scholar at Duke University.