HelpTestBayArea Volunteer Organization Fundraiser

UPDATE 10/24/2021

Updates and THANK YOU celebration for volunteers with Newsletter #1


Hello Donors and Volunteers,


We hope you had a great weekend. We have SEVERAL exciting updates for our volunteers!


Update #1: Thank you to all of our 500+ volunteers who assembled over 158,000 COVID-19 testing kits during the previous five weeks. Because of you, these COVID-19 kits will be used to test school children all over the Bay Area! We are OVER THE MOON since our initial goal was to assemble 35,000 kits. You guys are amazing and we hope you continue to volunteer with us in the upcoming weeks since we have some exciting opportunities planned for you all. 



Update #2: Predicine and HelpTestBayArea are hosting a THANK YOU celebration this Saturday, October 30th. There will be exclusive volunteer t-shirts that will be given out to each of our volunteers, a token of our appreciation for all your hard work! You can bring your families to this fun and spooky costume partay! Please see the flyer below for more information: 



 
Update #3: We are actively looking for volunteers that are interested in joining our CORE team within Helptestbayarea. CORE team members include UX design (website design, logo design, etc), social media content creator, volunteer coordinator, community outreach, and fundraising. If you want to help in any way that you can, please let us know and we can come up with ways that you can help! We are a volunteer-led organization and accept anyone who is willing to use their skills. 


Update #4: We are activating our GoFundme page  to raise money for our nonprofit org to continue our work in the community. Our team has been funding from their own pockets. Our partnerships that have been supporting us are not sustainable anymore. We are VERY thankful for our partner Predicine for providing us with the space for volunteers, food and beverages, no-cost testing for the community including front liners, non-insured, undocumented, and the community at large. All we ask is that you share the GoFundMe link with at least one person and if possible, that you can donate whatever you can. If there is no financial support, we might have to stop operations indefinitely. The money raised by our nonprofit is put back into the organization to keep it sustainable and eventually, hire full-time staff. Currently, everyone within HelpTestBayArea manages their full-time jobs and families while also helping out with this non-profit. 


Our GoFundMe link: HelpTestBayArea Fundraising Link 


Update #5: If you’d like your company to sponsor or establish a partnership with HelpTestBayArea please email [email redacted]


Update #6: If anyone needs no cost testing in the community, please send them to our partnered lab for testing. This includes PCR and Rapid testing. We provide it to front-line workers, essential workers, the uninsured and the undocumented at no cost. Please mention HelpTestBayArea. Testing is available 7 Days a week from 10 am to 5 pm at 3555 Investment Blvd Hayward, CA 94545.


To view HelpTestBayArea and Predicine in the news:
abc7news HelpTestBayArea Predicine Link 


To read about our Founders story to why we started this nonprofit organization, what we’ve done in the community, and what our plans are for the future please click the link below.

Founders Story Link 

 
To view our timeline please click this link below of our efforts in the community.

HelpTestBayArea Timeline Link 


Please share HelpTestBayArea to anyone in your community who would love to help our nonprofit continue our work in the community. Thank you so much for your continued, unwavering support of our non-profit! We are truly grateful for our volunteers and partnerships. We will continue to update you with future volunteer opportunities as they arise. 


Have a great week,

HelpTestBayArea


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UPDATE 12/10/2020


Need for Free MASS COVID-19 testing by Alameda County medical professionals, organizations and volunteers 

ALAMEDA COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS' General Meeting 

Tuesday, December 8, 2020 9:30 a.m. – 12:00 a.m. 
Represented community member 
Public Input 

Hello Board of Supervisors, 


My name is Juner Ryan and I work as an ER Nurse at Highland Hospital, and I am a Public Health Nurse in San Francisco County. 

First, I would like to express my deep gratitude to the Board of Supervisors & Alameda County Leaders for all the hard work that you have done for testing capabilities in Alameda County. Your efforts should be commended.

Governor Newsom has enacted a weekly mandate to test health care workers starting this week due to alarming numbers of Covid cases on the rise. 

We believe that NOW, more than ever, is the time to help the county make testing accessible and convenient, with shorter turnaround times for the community, while helping alleviate the load on current free testing sites.  

HelpTestBayArea is a group of grassroots volunteers, made up of local community members, and frontline health care workers in Alameda County. 

Our vision with HelpTestBayArea, is to build a large volunteer group of health care workers and community members to help with COVID-19 testing. We are in a partnership with Caring Angels Foundation, which is a local Bay Area non-profit. 

There are still a lot of front liners and essential workers wanting to be tested in Alameda County. I know there is a high influx of people now going to Contra Costa’s free testing sites, after having tried getting tested in a timely manner in our Alameda County without  success.

It is our greatest desire to provide FREE MASS COVID-19 testing, in Oakland Arena’s parking lot.  We can also use the site to bring in other organizations, to help mass test.  Other cities have utilized their empty stadiums or parking lots for mass testing.  At this time, our local parking lot is not being used in the best way possible for our community right now.  Using Oakland Arena’s parking lot would be a strategic location to test due to easy access to BART and the freeway for drive-thru and walk-up testing.  Photo is the possible site for mass testing.

We want to follow Hayward’s fire’s role of testing 500 + a day, Santa Clara county and SAP center’s 5 day event (which tested 1000 plus a day, for 5 days, with approximately 8 staff members), and UCSF’s mass testing events that were conducted in Oakland. Our goal is  to replicate these initiatives in Alameda County.

The Alameda County medical community has been significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We recently lost a colleague to COVID-19. It is a great loss to Highland Hospital and  to the greater  EMS community.

The death toll isn't just a number. We all in this room have lost or known someone who has lost a loved one, whether it is a mother, father, brother, sister, daughter or son. Each lost life has an effect on the people they leave behind. 

Today, we are here requesting, from the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, to support, and approve our proposal, to use Oakland Arena’s parking lot, to help MASS TEST our  community. This will create a central location, to promote easy access to MASS testing. 

We have sent our proposal to the board of supervisors, with our plans, and logistics, of testing for Oakland Arena, at any capacity needed to mass test up  to 1200 plus people a day. 

We hope to bring the community and its leaders together to help combat the current upsurge of Covid

HelpTestBayArea.com

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UPDATE 5/30/2020:

Hello Volunteers and the community,

Moving forward, we will be aiding Alameda County with free testing sites. We  will need volunteers to assist in testing the community at various locations in the upcoming weeks.

At this time, we are urgently seeking help from volunteers for testing at La Clinica in Fruitvale District of Oakland. Volunteers are needed as soon as next week, although nothing is set in stone yet.

Also, in June, the plan is to set up another testing site in Fruitvale. We are requesting volunteers on an ongoing basis with days they are able to commit to.

We need to get the word out and help direct individuals to volunteer and get tested.

We will utilize the GoFundMe to:

-Obtain proper PPE for volunteers and community

-Lunch for volunteers which will also in turn go to supporting local food business in Alameda County.

-Complementary transportation for testers and patients if they need to get to testing location. This in turn will help ride share apps as well.

-Hand sanitizer for patients

Things change on a daily basis so we will try to inform you in real time as things are happening. We appreciate your time and flexibility in this time of crisis.

Please email us ASAP the days you are able to commit and current licenses and experiences related to testing the community.

Sincerely,

Franko

Community Outreach Coordinator

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There are people on the frontlines of COVID-19 who still haven’t been tested or need to be retested: medical personnel, law enforcement, care home workers, essential workers, those who are still showing up to work. Our goal is to test people in the community that are not showing symptoms or have symptoms, but have no access to a testing site. We want to help community members unable to be testing in their community.. The greater Bay Area is welcomed to be tested based on funding.


We want to focus on Alameda County residents and workers in the community. As Northern California eases the shelter-in-place in the next couple of weeks with Phase 3, this is important to provide some relief and normalcy. 


We also want to focus on individuals that work in a high risk environment, where they can spread the virus and don’t show any symptoms. As we know, there are people in the community that can carry the virus while showing no signs or symptoms. We want to supplement and be the safety net for all these free test sites that only test people with symptoms. We will make a priority list for groups or individuals that meet this criteria and want to be tested for this one-day event. Based on funding we will consider adding an extra day.
We want to teach, learn, and help the community to mass test and help have some sort normalcy during this crisis and before phase 2 of relaxing the stay at home orders.

What we want to replicate with our Volunteers CLICK HERE 
Facebook- Event Invite 
Twitter @VolunteerTesti1
Instagram @Volunteercovid19Oakland 

Our Vision
is to build a volunteer group comprised of medical students and all off duty Emergency Medical Services (Frontliners). These volunteers will manage the central testing site while learning from Hayward and Fremont Fire Department. We will be following strict CDC guidelines for social distancing , during this event. We will be the main testing group, but if other sites would like to join, they are encouraged to join.
To gather All off duty Emergency Medical Services (Frontliners) and have them volunteer to manage the central testing site while learning from Hayward and Fremont Fire Department (if they choose to join our Gofundme Team). 


As a whole, we decided to postpone the event and reschedule for mid- to late June as a one-day event. We believe this change will give us ample time to research, secure a venue, and develop the event infrastructure.


This project received inspiration from  Highland Hospitals Gofundme , Hayward and Fremont Fire Department, Law enforcement, and all the Frontliners, including essential workers, and the community like you.

This Gofundme will have the community come together, with all volunteers manage the testing site and to have the community help direct tested community members to social services from our supporters.


We will be a supplement to free testing sites and test individuals with no symptoms or are unable to have access to testing. They would be placed on a priority list prior to the event. We want to prioritize people with no symptoms. 


Jump to Section
1.Our Story 
2. The Plan 
3. We Need Your Help !
4. Key Dates 
5. Transparency 
6. Accomplished So Far 
7. Inspiration 

If any other cities want to send EMS volunteers, this can be an event to train your Frontline heroes and bring back a proven safe, efficient, and practical testing site. We also invite clinics to come and join us for this testing event. This is why we need to secure the most central location, and that is why this parking lot is significant to our plan.

To  SUPPORT, SHARE, AND VOLUNTEER please Click Here 
CLICK HERE  for more information at https://helptestbayarea.com

Share this youtube ad to Help  at HelpTestBayArea 
Please share this community  youtube video on social media below
                                                                                                          YouTube Channel 



We hope for the testing site to be in Oakland, California so we can test everyone and the greater Bay Area, in a place where people used to come together to support their team, by car and by BART


We are currently trying to secure the former  Golden State Warriors parking lot and the current Oakland Athletics baseball stadiums parking lot

Just like the Warriors, we believe in strength in numbers as community


We hope someone out there can help secure this space and make this testing event more closer to  a reality

The COVID-19 virus has no discrimination, so we must help each each other collectively during this crisis
If Hayward Fire Department and Fremont Fire Department would like to join us, please contact us immediately.

Their department has been doing incredible work testing, Frontliners, community, care homes, and all for free.


Our group is made up of all grassroots, donating their time for free, to help manage the testing site.
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Inspiration 

The inspiration came from Fire Chief Garrett Contreras and his team at the Hayward Fire Department and Fremont Fire Chief Curtis Jacobson. Here’s some current information on their incredible work and dedication. We encourage you to support and donate to their causes.

•           COVID-19 Testing Site Moves From Hayward Fire Station to CSU East Bay (NBC News) - Click Here 
•           Free Fremont Coronavirus Testing Center Opens Friday (Patch) - Click Here 
•           Fremont free COVID-19 drive-through testing center tests 715 in first week (The Mercury News) - Click Here 

The passion and inspiration also came from the town of Bolinas and the testing team who partnered with UCSF to make Testing available to their residents. We encourage you to check out or support their work

https://bolinastesting.org/ 
https://www.gofundme.com/f/covid19-test-bolinas

We hope to duplicate the efforts of all these inspiring groups and serve the people of Alameda County.

If our efforts do not succeed, we plan to DONATE ALL funds to The Fire Departments doing Free Testing. We can donate all to Oakland Fire Department if they decide to replicate the efforts of Hayward and Fremont Fire Department in helping save lives by testing their community.



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