March 27, 2020
“We can all do little things,” said Dr. L. Kristen Page, who organized the donation of much-needed medical supplies from the College to the DuPage County Health Department.
This week, biology professor Dr. L. Kristen Page loaded her truck with healthcare equipment to donate to the DuPage County Health Department on behalf of Wheaton College.
A call with a Wheaton alumnus who works in healthcare inspired the move.
“My student asked if I would pray for more safety equipment since increasingly he and his colleagues have fewer and fewer ways to stay safe at work,” Page said. “I thought: ‘I have all of these masks and gloves in my lab. Somebody should use them.’”
Page, whose areas of specialty include disease transmission and public health, realized that with students now studying remotely as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the College’s science departments had boxes of surgical gloves and masks that would go unused for the rest of the semester.
She quickly got the green light to donate College materials from Department Chair Dr. Raymond Lewis, Provost Dr. Margaret Diddams, and President Dr. Philip Ryken, and reached out to other departments, including Chemistry, Student Health Services, and Facilities, to gather donations.
On Wednesday, the College donated 20 cases of gloves, three boxes of dust masks, three boxes of pleated masks, and 300 boxes of N95 masks, as well as some boxes of N100 masks, to the DuPage County Health Department. The N100 masks offer protection above that typically used in healthcare.
Page said she’s not sure how long the donated supplies will go toward filling any shortage, but she said it’s important that we all do our part.
“We can all do little things,” she said. “Donating cases of boxes that aren’t being used— that’s something little we can do.”—Emily Bratcher