Local Chinese Community Raises $6K for Masks

Volunteers deliver masks to the Garden City Fire Department.

Five Chinese women, all local residents, raised over $6,000 from 60 families over just a few days in early April to buy masks and other personal protective equipment for local medical professionals and first responders. 

The women, who asked to remain anonymous, are members of a WeChat group for Chinese and Chinese Americans living in the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District. Usually, the 200-300 members of the group use the platform to share information about local events, restaurants, and gardening. But with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in Delaware County, they decided to use their network to help.

Many Chinese Americans say they have been bombarded with news about the coronavirus since mid-January. Many have been in daily contact with family in China and have sent supplies and money to support family, friends, and medical staff there. Now that the U.S. has become the epicenter of the pandemic, the situation is reversed, with people here receiving worried phone calls and boxes of masks from China.

As the lack of masks and other supplies in the U.S. became clear, the Chinese community wanted to help. “We opened boxes of masks from family and friends, put them in Ziploc bags, and gave them to our neighbors,” one woman said. But they also wanted to do something more.

Sunday night, April 5, three women met online to organize a larger campaign. On Monday morning, they launched the idea on the WeChat group. By noon, they had raised more than $3,000. By Wednesday, the total was $6,177, and the group had grown to include Chinese Americans from Springfield. “We were overwhelmed by the enthusiasm to support frontline workers,” one organizer said.

Throughout the week, volunteers met nightly after they put their kids to bed, organizing, sending receipts, and deciding where to donate the masks. Using their connections to Chinese suppliers, the group purchased 45 boxes of KN95 respirators (similar to American-made N95s) and 130 boxes of surgical masks — 7,050 masks in all. 

By Thursday, they had distributed them to the Swarthmore, Nether Providence, and Springfield fire departments; several local police departments and post offices; Riddle and Temple hospitals; and many individual doctors, nurses, and senior citizens in the community. They also gave masks to the Garden City Fire Company to distribute to a local nursing home and people working at the WSSD food distribution project. “We are a part of this community,” one of the organizers said. “This is our home.”

She added, “We all need positive stories to give people a sense of togetherness and hope.”