Help Spread Information About Covid-19 Via Text

Introduction

Our mission is to offer FREE text messages to facilitate communication about Coronavirus (COVID-19) using funding provided by your donations.

COVID-19 Helpline is an open-source tool that offers a convenient way to access the status of the coronavirus outbreak anywhere in the world. All information is obtained from John Hopkins University’s COVID-19 data repository and is updated on a daily basis. The text helpline also allows you to get the latest news articles, and the CDC advice for how to stay safe. You can find more information on our website: https://covid-helpline.com/ 

Why Is This Important?

The greatest concern during a global crisis is how to help individuals access reliable information in the most user-friendly manner. With the shutdown of almost every public library and school in the nation, many Americans do not have access to even basic internet services. Even though the vast majority of Americans- 95%- own a cell phone, not all are smartphones. In fact, a sizable population of adults who own smartphones does not have the skillset or confidence to use its features. Since almost every American is able to send and receive text messages with ease, the COVID-19 Helpline is a valid solution.   

Since older adults are at an even higher risk of complications and even death from COVID-19, it is imperative that we provide a simple, yet effective way for anyone to stay informed about their loved ones around the world. According to early CDC data, individuals with severe chronic medical conditions like heart, lung or kidney disease are at a significantly higher risk of death than younger age groups. As a result, older adults are the most vulnerable to COVID-19 illness than any other demographic. We developed the COVID-19 Helpline with the hope of reaching all Americans with the information they deserve, but we need your financial help.   

Critical Timing 

Providing crucial information via FREE text messages, along with novel Coronavirus safety tips from the CDC, the COVID-19 Helpline is an effective solution to raise awareness during this pandemic.

Why We Need Your Donations

We need funding to mitigate the cost of the infrastructure that allows us to run this service for FREE. We are using Twilio API to programmatically send and receive SMS. We use Google Cloud Platform to run our service uninterruptedly.
We are currently paying for the cost of running this service, the phone number, the hosting, the necessary tools, and even the personnel involved (when there is no free help) out of our pocket.
Since the incoming requests and demand for this service keeps increasing, we decided to raise funds that would allow us to keep maintaining, scaling, and paying for the infrastructure of this service, so we can keep it running for free for those who need it the most. We estimate the cost of us running this service at scale with all the dependencies to be around $500 for the first month which is our goal. Any extra funds will go to improving the service, developing new features, and working on our next important piece which is worldwide compatibility.