Initiative Background

The coronavirus pandemic has become a global threat. With the United States now having the most confirmed cases in the world, and New York being the American epicenter, the local need for personal protective equipment (PPE) is at an all-time high.

On March 23rd, 2020, four American nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) partnered with three Chinese NGOs to form the COVID-19 Life Preservation Initiative. Together, we hope to fight the pandemic hand in hand with the rest of the US, by helping to protect healthcare workers, first responders, community volunteers and vulnerable populations. It is our human calling to help one another, regardless of our politics, borders, religion or race. To defeat COVID-19, we must put aside all biases, prejudices and preconceptions. United we stand. Divided we fall.

The Daofeng and Angela Foundation led the way to create this initiative and pledged to donate $800,000. Based in Maryland, the Daofeng and Angela Foundation sees the initiative as an effort to mobilize civil society in different countries to overcome a shared crisis and foster self-governance and civic awareness in the process.

Through April 9, 2020, we have donated 26,430 N95 masks to 14 hospitals in the New York and Washington DC regions. In total, we have acquired 90,000 N95 masks from the US and Japan and 1.1 million non-surgical masks from China, which will arrive in 7 batches throughout April and distributed to the communities in need.

We have conducted independent verifications and identified hospitals most in need of N95 masks, and we have established key contacts in these hospitals to directly receive our donations on the ground. For vulnerable communities, we are donating non-surgical masks to other nonprofits with community distribution networks to be given to public service workers and community volunteers that are in direct contact with local residents, thereby reducing the COVID-19 infection rate in these communities.