Baton Rouge, La. – June 11, 2020 – Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome and the Baton Rouge Health District announced a major milestone in its PPE Donation Initiative. With a recent generous PPE donation by Guardians of the Angeles Foundation (GoA) and SLT Technologies, the PPE initiative has well exceeded 100,000 boxes of donated PPE items received for area healthcare workers. A summary of received donations below, amounting to several metric tons of donated PPE supplies collected at the Plank Road warehouse and forwarded to our local hospitals and clinics.
“Providing our healthcare workers with the needed PPE has been a challenge for most communities throughout the country. Here in Baton Rouge we met the challenge through partnerships like this with private companies,” said Mayor Broome. “Public-private partnerships continue to play a key role in our response to the coronavirus pandemic.”
"These are unprecedented times that call for unprecedented community support. We are glad to play a part in reducing the impacts of this outbreak by supporting those guarding our community. We are stronger together." said Junzi Tan, Executive Director of GoA Foundation. “When our city is in need, I’m happy to step up and do whatever is necessary for us to move forward. Being able to partner which great organization like GOA to make this happen is extremely important in this fight!” added Calvin Mills Jr., President and CEO of SLT Technologies. GoA was founded in early 2020 amid the global outbreak of COVID-19, with a mission to support the most vulnerable - healthcare professionals, first responders, and essential workers - all those safeguarding our community in combating the pandemic. SLT Technologies is a major full-service IT consulting firm located in Baton Rouge.
Mayor Broome and the Baton Rouge Health District first announced the initiative in March. The Plank Road donation site serves as a business-to-business interchange to intake, organize and distribute much-needed PPE to our area hospitals and clinics. The location is not a donation site for the general public.
To date, the initiative has supported healthcare workers caring for COVID-19 patients at over 20 regional hospitals, long-term acute care facilities, nursing homes, rehab facilities, home health agencies, and testing sites. “Our entire community is thankful for this incredible effort to secure the necessary PPE for our healthcare heroes,” said K. Scott Wester, President & CEO of Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center and Baton Rouge Health District Board Member. “These important resources are keeping our frontline teams safe as they continue to battle COVID-19 every day. We are thankful for everyone who donated and played a part.”
Building on its success, the PPE initiative is expanding and inviting all interested medical providers and practices across the Baton Rouge region that may be in need of protective equipment to sign up and receive donated PPE supplies. Register by emailing the name and description of the medical practice, point of contact name, address, phone number and email address where you can be reached to PPEDonations@brhealthdistrict.com . More information is available on the PPE Donation website at brhealthdistrict.com .
To support its forthcoming expansion, the Baton Rouge PPE initiative is partnering with MedSupplyDrive, a national PPE movement aimed at mobilizing supplies and getting them to hospitals in need. MedSupplyDrive will provide volunteers to support distribution center efforts to reach the entire Baton Rouge medical community. “Partnering with Baton Rouge Health District is a great way for our two organizations to work together in serving the common goal of getting PPE to the medical providers of our community,” said Elise Hernandez, Regional Coordinator for the Baton Rouge Area with MedSupplyDrive. More information at medsupplydrive.org .