Jon Schaefer '95 launches organization to fight COVID-19 with ski goggles
In these uncertain times, when you are instructed to stay home, you may not know how to help. Jon Schaefer ’95 who is the General Manager at Berkshire East and Catamount Ski Areas in Massachusetts has given people all across the country who may feel like they don’t know how to be helpful the ability to make an immediate impact.
Schaefer was at home on Saturday, March 28 when he received a forwarded email from Mike Halperin, a New York City ER Doctor asking for donated ski goggles to help fill the void for his frontline medical workers who were running out of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). Halperin’s request was for ski goggles to serve as temporary protective eyewear while treating COVID-19 patients. “Unprotected eyes can be a vector for the virus. The virus can be coughed into the air and infect a patient through the eye,” explained Schaefer.
Schaefer then quickly created a spreadsheet to manage the initial wave of requests from medical centers. Very quickly, he jumped at the opportunity to create something more formal. “The most insidious thing is being stuck at home and feeling so helpless. This just happened to come by me and I felt compelled to jump at it,” said Schaefer.
Schaefer woke up the next morning with hundreds of messages on social media and his personal email. Among those initial messages was an offer from Inntopia, a ski resort software company. They were able to build a website and scalable template within a few hours. “The template provides a way to organize incoming requests from medical centers, process simple vetting to ensure best efforts are being made so donated goggles end up directly in the hands of those that need them the most and provide folks at home with a way to donate, and fill requests in real-time,” according to Schaefer.
With the website and the addition of a new name, Goggles for Docs came to life. Goggles for Docs is directly helping frontline medical workers who lack the appropriate eye care to safely treat COVID-19 patients. The doctors who Schaefer had been in contact with were so appreciative. “There is an oddly comical yet highly logical piece that they appreciate. Who would have thought that ER doctors in New Orleans would be wearing ski goggles?” said Schaefer. He goes on to say “the support of the general public helping them provides them a tiny bit of hope and good news.”
By Monday, March 30, the best ski racer in the world, Mikaela Shiffrin, had posted about the campaign on her social media accounts. That afternoon, 1,600 goggles had been shipped to seven states, and a strong group of dedicated volunteers was forming. As of today, April 8, 2020, more than 18,000 goggles have been shipped with dozens of new medical centers being vetted daily by Goggles For Docs volunteers.
Many people came together so quickly because “the snow sports industry is made up of very motivated, independent, free-thinking people, I think we all saw the simple brilliance of using ski goggles as PPE. Its probably the only piece of PPE inventory in the United States that a single, highly motivated and connected group owns, that can be deployed quickly and obviously to the front lines. For example, there isn’t a group of people hoarding hospital gowns,” explained Schaefer.
What is next you ask? Well, Schaefer is working with key people to take Goggles for Docs global. “We are looking to launch in five countries,” said Schaefer. The need for consumer and industry participation and more goggles continues to grow with no end in sight, so please consider donating by visiting https://gogglesfordocs.com/. No comments have been posted
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