Engineering Society donates 500 N95 masks to local medical facilities

“Everyone must do their part,” Society president says

Image supplied by: EngSoc Facebook
EngSoc President Delaney Benoit packs N95 masks for donation to Kingston Health Sciences Centre.

The Engineering Society (EngSoc) had hundreds of N95 masks in storage for the construction of its annual Science Formal. Now, those masks will be used by local medical professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic.

EngSoc, which donated around 500 masks to local medical facilities on March 27, uses N95 masks to protect student volunteers against dust and debris when doing construction and painting ahead of Science Formal, last hosted in Nov. 2019.

“Our General Manager [Jay Young] had the idea after taking a trip to one of our storage lockers,” EngSoc President Delaney Benoit said in a written statement to The Journal. “After he suggested to the executive that we should donate the masks, it was an easy decision.”

She added that Science Formal Convener Mitch Crompton was also “very enthusiastic” about the idea.

Every year, the graduating class constructs a large decorative structure inside Grant Hall in the weeks leading up to the event. According to Benoit, there can sometimes be more than a hundred volunteers working at once, either in Grant Hall or in the warehouse rented for event preparation.

After calling Kingston General Hospital, EngSoc was directed to donate the masks to the Kingston Health Sciences Centre, where they will be distributed to local medical facilities in need.

“It was important to donate the masks to support the medical staff of our community [because] we were fortunate enough to have access to the resources to help out and we felt strongly that we should contribute what we could,” Benoit said. “[Those] were all the masks we had in storage.”

For those interested in donating supplies, Benoit said they should contact Maryanne Takala at Shared Support Services Southeastern Ontario (3SO) to arrange a drop-off, instead of directly going to any of the hospitals.

“[H]opefully this will serve as encouragement to our membership and other organizations that everyone must do their part, whether it be adherence to social distancing or donating supplies to combat the pandemic.”

Corrections

This article has been updated to reflect the right name of the Science Formal Convener.

The Journal regrets the error

Tags

Covid-19, Engineering Society

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