Since the pandemic erupted, we have seen an outpouring of support from the community in the form of in-kind donations of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other infection control items.
To manage these in-kind donations and prevent the disruption of donations being delivered to our hospitals, we opened a community drop-off site at UW Surplus. Over the last two months this site has been voluntarily staffed by our colleagues at UW Advancement and has been visited by hundreds of donors.
In recent weeks, we have seen a natural slowdown in the number of community members using our drop-off site and to ensure the responsible use of staff time and resources, we decided to close the site as of June 1.
UW Medicine Advancement is still actively seeking large-scale donations of certain PPE items, which currently includes surgical masks (though the need will likely change over time). For smaller in-kind donations, we are encouraging community members to consider giving to local organizations that can benefit greatly from smaller quantities of PPE.
We have the systems in place to reopen the community donation site quickly, should the need arise. In the meantime, we invite you to learn more on our in-kind donation webpage.
