Grafton raffle will bring nurses PPE, sanitizers and ‘ear savers’
When Grafton nurses Meg Sorensen, Katie Blondheiml and Junji Pavaotold told her that wearing face masks and PPE for 12 hours a day were hurting their ears, Maria Adamo and her family got to work.
They made headbands with buttons, a simple and comfortable solution to the blister and rawness caused by the face mask elastics for many nurses on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I posted it on social media and friends/family wanted to help out, sending donations and offering to source materials so we just kept going from there,” Adamo said. “Friends and I have posted on some Grafton facebook groups and have had a number of Grafton good samaritans both donate monetarily as well as drop off supplies.”
That brought in enough to make over 2,000 headpieces as well as source over 200 units of disinfectant/sanitizer, 2,500 medical grade gloves, 550 face masks “and are crossing our fingers for 350 kn95 masks are on the way,” Adamo said.
To add to the project, Adamo also created a small business gift card raffle, with 100 percent of the proceeds to be used for earsavers, PPE including kn95 masks, and disinfectant/sanitizer.
She plans a live lottery drawing Monday on the raffle’s Facebook page. The two raffle baskets have a total value of $600 and include gift cards from:
- Anzio’s Brick Oven Pizza (Northborough)
- Bigelow Nurseries (Northborough)
- Boro Sugar Shack (Westborough)
- Bushel & Peck (Grafton)
- Grafton Grill (Grafton)
- Hebert Candies (Shrewsbury)
- Houlden Farm (Grafton)
- Lakeview House of Pizza (Grafton)
- Learning Express (Westborough)
- Pepperoni Express (Grafton)
- Quite Fetching Barkery & Pet Boutique (Grafton)
- Reunion Tap and Table (Grafton)
- Sugarplums/Dance It Up! (Grafton)
- Tatnuck Bookseller (Westborough)
- The Post Office Pub (Grafton)
- Town House Tavern (Grafton, currently closed but will honor gift cards upon opening)
Raffle tickets are one for $5, three for $10, and 10 for $20. Tickets may be purchased virtually through:
- GoFundMe (https://bit.ly/Earsavers) comment or e-mail mariapadamo@gmail.com: “Raffle + your email”
- Venmo: @Maria-Adamo and include in comments: “Raffle + your name + email”
- Venmo/Paypal a ticket seller/co-host directly
“We have received a lot of personal requests as well, so we are shipping to whomever needs it nationwide,” Adamo said. “My family is from the Bronx, where it is considered the epicenter of COVID-19 breakout, so we have been shipping a lot of supplies there to assist those hospitals very much on the verge of collapse. The stories friends, family and those requesting aid are very dire and we are shipping out as quickly as we can.”
Supplies to date have been sent to the following hospitals:
- UMass Memorial (Worcester)
- St. Vincent’s (Worcester)
- Sterling Village Nursing Home (Sterling)
- Montefiore Medical (Bronx, NY)
- Lincoln Medical (Bronx, NY)
- BronxCare Medican (Bronx, NY)
- NY Presbyterian-Weill Cornell (NYC)
- Westchester Medical (NY)
- Holy Name Hospital (NJ)
- Hackensack University Medical Center (NJ)
- Yale Medical (CT)
- Cedar Sinai (CA)
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