COVID-19 Response
As people of action, Rotary Club of Bedford members want to find ways to respond to COVID-19, and to help people affected by it. We have found many ways both large and small to help locally and nationally. Our weekly meetings are now conducted over Zoom - please contact us if you would like to join us on a meeting (contact form is on the bottom of the home page).
In order to combat PPE shortages due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Elliot Rittenberg (President of the Rotary Club of Westborough) was approached by Milford Hospital to build face shields for their medical staff. Thus, he began a Rotary project to source materials and have Rotarians build 100 face shields for donation to Milford Hospital. This initial effort grew into a much larger effort for 700 shields with the Rotary Club of Bedfor
d (Victor Tom, Past President) and Rotary District 7910 using Zoom conference calling and distributed production (maintaining social distancing) at Rotarian homes. Thus far, with help from the Rotary Clubs Concord and Billerica, we delivered 100 face shields to Emerson Hospital, 100 to UMass Memorial Hospital in Worcester, and other amounts to the Bedford VA Hospital, smaller clinics and police/EMTs in local communities.
d (Victor Tom, Past President) and Rotary District 7910 using Zoom conference calling and distributed production (maintaining social distancing) at Rotarian homes. Thus far, with help from the Rotary Clubs Concord and Billerica, we delivered 100 face shields to Emerson Hospital, 100 to UMass Memorial Hospital in Worcester, and other amounts to the Bedford VA Hospital, smaller clinics and police/EMTs in local communities.
When Bedford HS seniors Cole Parks and Sylvia Wolk were sent home when Bedford HS closed down, instead of taking a vacation, they focused their energies to respond to an urgent plea from a hospital in Delhi, NY for face shields. They 3D-printed a large number of face shields and shipped them to NY. The Rotary Club of Bedford learned of their efforts, provided a more efficient design, recognized their community service contributions in our BRIC2 program (Bedford Rotary Ideas Community Challenge), and helped them distribute more of their shields throughout our Rotary District 7910 region. Today (4/14) 100 face shields produced by Cole Parks were delivered to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester.