Operation Mask Lift

Operation Mask-Lift:  Delivering Life-Saving Masks to Tens of Thousands of Front Line Health Care Workers

Our Goal:
$25,000  will allow us to purchase and deliver an additional 10,000 KN95 masks to those who need them, and deliver them within a week of the close of this campaign.

Who are we?
Operation Mask-Lift is an initiative started by John Wood (Founder of Room to Read, one of the world’s most impactful education organizations) and his wife Amy Powell  to help provide urgently-required masks to those who most need them.  In just three short weeks this has turned into a global movement, with real results in real time!


A Proud But Short History - 

In just three weeks Operation Mask-Lift has:

--Delivered 160,000 masks to the US and Canada
--Landed 25,000 more on the ground today for immediate delivery, with 25,000 more shipping this week.
--Launched a Neediest Cases Fund so that low-income communities are not left behind.
--Added new beneficiary nations, including Italy, Malaysia, Spain and the UK.
--Incurred zero overhead thanks to dozens of volunteers, a donated warehouse and an underwriter of shipping costs.
--Deployed over 95% of the $350,000 of funds donated thus far.

To date we have reached out to our closest friends for the seed capital to get this off the ground.  Given that we are receiving hundreds of requests that we want to answer in the affirmative, we are now asking for donations from a broader group via this page.

Our sincere gratitude to the hundreds of people who have stepped up to date to donate to this initiative at a time the world needs leadership.  Let’s not stop until every brave person on the front lines of this fight has the masks they need and deserve.

Who gets the masks?
Through our volunteer network, we have identified ten institutions that are at high risk and to whom we will donate these 10,000 masks.  These include Harlem Hospital, Detroit’s Henry Ford Health Care System, Seattle’s King Country Homeless Outreach efforts, several rural hospitals in Louisiana, and San Francisco’s Golden Gate Senior Center.  We are also open to your suggestions based upon needs you are seeing.

Our Supply Chain
We contract only with FDA-approved suppliers with strong reputations. The quality of our masks is demonstrated by the list of blue-chip institutions who have accepted and/or requested our masks, shown at the bottom of this page.

What are KN95 masks?
KN95 respirator masks are an EU-standard.  When properly manufactured and tested, they are considered to have most, if not all, of the protective qualities of the currently-impossible-to-source N95 masks.  The Food and Drug Administration on April 3 issued an exception to its strict regulation of respirators, releasing a statement saying it “would not object” to their use “for the duration of the pandemic.” The Centers for Disease Control has also deemed the KN95 mask a suitable alternative when N95 supplies are low, as have a long list of other developed nations.

Partial list of hospitals benefiting from Operation Mask-Lift so far:

University of Michigan Hospital - Ann Arbor, MI
East Central Georgia Healthcare Coalition - Augusta, GA
Riverbend Nursing Home - Belle Chasse, LA
MacNeal Hospital - Berwyn, IL
Bridgehampton EMT - Bridgehampton, NY
Bridgehampton Fire Dept - Bridgehampton, NY
Albert Einstein College of Medicine - Bronx, NY
Jacobi Medical Center  - Bronx, NY
Kingsbrook Jewish Hospital  Brooklyn, NY
Brigham and Women's Hosptial, Harvard University - Cambridge, MA
Elizabeth Ludlow Development Center  - Chicago, IL
Loretto Hospital - Chicago, IL
Mount Sinai Hospital - Chicago, IL
Rush University Medical Center - Chicago, IL
Mercy Hospital - Chicago, IL
Ressurection Hospital - Chicago, IL
Aid for Women - Chicago, IL
Lurie Children’s Hospital - Chicago, IL
Henry Ford Health System - Detroit, MI
Kaiser Permanente - Fremont, CA
Albany Medical Center - Glenville, NY
Harlem Hospital - Harlem, NY
Connecticut Children's Hospital - Hartford, CT
Hartford Hospital - Hartford, CT
St. Mary's Medical Center - Hobart, IN
Pacific Medical Center - Kirkland, WA
St. Charles Community Health Center - Lulling, LA
University of Wisconsin Health System - Madison, WI
North Shore University Hospital - Manhasset, NY
Women's Healthcare of Illinois - Mokena, IL
Westchester Ambulance - Mt. Kisco, NY
Kaiser Permanente - Murietta, CA
Weill-Cornell Medical Center - New York, NY
Mount Sinai Hospital - New York, NY
Columbia Doctors - New York, NY
NYU Langonne Medical Center - New York, NY
University Medical Center - Newark, NJ
Lawndale Christian Health Clinic - North Lawndale, IL
Advocate Christ Hospital - Oak Park, IL
West Suburban Hospital - Oak Park, IL
Stanford University Medical Center
Palo Alto, CA Advocate Lutheran General - Park Ridge, IL
St Mary's Hospital - Passaic, NJ
Plaquemines Parish General Hospital - Port Sulphur, LA
Jamaica Hospital - Queens, NY
Gladstone Institute - San Francisco, CA
Golden Gate Senior Services - San Francisco, CA
Mission Neighborhood Health Center- San Francisco, CA
Swedish Medical Center - Seattle, WA
Seattle Cancer Care Alliance - Seattle, WA
North Shore Ambulatory Care - Skokie, IL
Southampton EMT - Southhampton, NY
Southampton Hospital - Southhampton, NY
Westchester Medical Center - Valhalla, NY