It's hard not to feel bummed out or stressed after watching the news these days. But like John Krasinski and his SGN YouTube show, we wanted to share some good news of our own! We learned about some very special people in the O&P profession that are using what resources they have to help healthcare workers during the pandemic.

Tony Culver, President of Grace Prosthetic Fabrication, an ABC accredited CFab facility, home cooked 40 barbeque meals for the nurses at Tampa General Hospital.

Tony’s 71-year old mother, Grace, contracted the coronavirus and Tony wanted to show his local healthcare workers how much they were appreciated. Keep up the good work, Tony!

The team at Knit-Rite in Kansas City, Kan. has converted their production lines (normally used to make medical compression gear) to also now turn out protective face masks. For every mask sold, Knit-Rite is committed to donating a mask. According to KnitRite’s Executive Vice President, Kam Howard, “Our goal is to donate masks to organizations within our community that are serving vulnerable populations or critical needs. We hope to produce around 60,000-80,000 masks a week.” The company also reached out to ABC to coordinate a mass mailing of complementary masks to all ABC accredited facilities. Thank you to everyone at Knit-Rite for their inventiveness and generosity!

The team at Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare, an ABC accredited patient care facility in St. Paul, Minn. has shifted from fabricating prosthetics and wheelchairs to now making masks for fellow healthcare workers. The masks are intended for hospital employees not involved in the direct effort to treat COVID-19 patients, so that the stock of specialty PPE can be reserved for frontline workers in need of the greatest protection. The team has made hundreds of masks so far and plans to make hundreds more.

These are just three examples of companies doing great things for their community and we are so proud they are part of our wonderful profession!

If you have a good news story you’d like to share about someone in our profession giving back, please email Megan Matijevich at mmatijevich@abcop.org.

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References:

<a href='https://www.freepik.com/photos/medical'>Medical photo created by benzoix - www.freepik.com</a>