As the number of COVID-19 cases in the United States continues to rise, so do the admissions to hospitals where health care workers are working tirelessly to provide the best care to the most vulnerable.
Despite the danger of caring for these critically ill patients, nurses, doctors, and respiratory therapists continue to show up for work day after day. Once finished their long and tiresome shifts, these workers return home to their own families.
Dr. John Phillips is an emergency physician at a Texas hospital and goes home to his wife and two children. His wife, Emily Phillips, suffers from asthma along with her 8-year-old son. Those who suffer from asthma and other respiratory conditions are more at risk of becoming critically ill if they contract COVID-19.
Therefore, Emily reached out to her friends on Facebook to see if anyone would be willing to donate an RV or camper where her husband could reside for the time being. Luckily, a friend put her in contact with Holly Haggard, who was willing to donate her camper free of charge to Emily’s husband.
“We offered our little camper that we have. We didn’t want any money for it. We just wanted to offer it so he could keep his family safe. We felt like it was something we could do to give back because he’s the one on the front lines,” said Haggard.
These two mothers didn’t decide to stop here. They put all of their energy in pairing health care providers with others who are willing to donate their RVs or campers.
Phillips created a Facebook page, RVs for MDs To Fight The Coronavirus, which quickly went viral.
“We went from four or five of us sharing to two-hundred to three-hundred to six-hundred, and then I wake up the next morning on [Thursday] and now we’ve got fourteen-hundred,” said Haggard.
Within a week, their Facebook group had more than twenty-thousand members and is growing by the day. There are thousands of posts in the group from health care workers requesting temporary lodging and good samaritans posting available RVs and campers.
The group’s vast network of volunteers has successfully paired RVs and campers to hundreds of health care workers across the nation.
If you would like to donate an RV or are a health care provider that needs a temporary residence, visit their Facebook page.
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