Breck School in Golden Valley Collects Graduation Gowns for Hospitals
Medical facilities are facing a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE). In the fight against COVID-19, health care workers are using anything they can to protect themselves and their patients, including graduation gowns.
Breck School Drive-Through Collection
Breck School in Golden Valley learned about how graduation gowns can be used as an alternative PPE through the Gowns4Good website.
Frederique Schmidt, director of community partnerships for Breck School, brought it up to a few students who were eager to help the community.
The students came up with a drive-through collection on Saturday. The school was able to gather 550 graduation gowns in just four hours. Schmidt said people from all over the state dropped off their gowns.
“The Gowns4Good website, they receive requests from organizations that need PPEs and then they ask folks to directly send to those organizations,” explained Schmidt.
Schmidt said that Minnesota has six organizations asking for gowns. Breck School will be sending the donations to those locations.
Turning Graduation Gowns To PPEs
Schmidt explained that health workers will wear the gowns itself but with the zipper on the back.
“The requirements for replacement PPEs has to be something that can go on easily and they need to be long sleeved and cover the five points that they need to cover,” Schmidt said.
Those five points include wrists, arms and chest. The material also needs to provide barrier and protection. Schmidt said the advantage of using graduation gowns as PPEs is it can be washed.
“It’s a great service project,” Schmidt said. “For seniors in particular, it was meaningful because their tradition has really been upended but this is symbolic in a way.”
