HAMPTON, Va. -- A team of medical workers at Sentara CarePlex Hospital received boxes of gloves and hand-sewn face masks from congregants at Waters Edge Church. The donation was coveted as hospitals across the nation reported shortages of personal protective equipment, also known as PPE.
The medical staff are on the front lines, battling the coronavirus as President Trump said, "We are at war with an invisible enemy." The president stated this during a press conference with his Coronavirus Task Force.
"I think it's like for most people in this country right now, it's scary," Kristina Ivy, an ER Technician and "ambassador" who received the donations on behalf of the hospital. "I'm provided with all the gear that I need, and I feel pretty confident in our ability to handle it."
Ivy stood outside of the hospital's Emergency Center with her colleagues, huddled together as a team. The donated PPE came in the back of a car, driven by math teacher and church volunteer Curtis Blauch.
"No matter what in the health career field, what they're doing, it's a real honorable profession," Blauch said. "You're not in the same situation they're in, and you want to help them out in any which way you can."
The goal of the donation was to ensure the medical staff can do their job effectively and safely. The donated face masks donned different and colorful designs. It also included boxes of gloves.
Blauch said the church received these items as donations to the church. Since the church did not need the PPE, they decided to give it to the medical staff.
"The support we've received from the community, it just makes us so proud and it makes us so proud of what we do," Ivy said as she pointed out to her team. "Everything that's being done is by these guys, every single day. They're killing it. I couldn't be more proud of them."
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Blauch, amid his praise for the staff and other medical workers, said he could not do such a job.
"That's a very big stress level that I know me personally - that's not what I was meant to do," Blauch said. "I admire them so much for all the hard work that they put in."
The medical staff all shouted, "Thank you, Waters Edge," in unison for the donation.
