August 28th, 2020
The county is providing face masks, gloves, face shields, gowns and sanitizer.
Monroe County Executive Adam Bello announced today that the county is providing personal protective equipment to local public, private and charter schools as they prepare for reopening. Equipment distribution was held this week at Monroe County's Fleet Center.
"Ensuring the continued health, safety and well-being of students, teachers, staff and families in our school systems is essential," said Bello. "The COVID-19 crisis has brought our community together in so many ways we never expected and I'm proud to work with our school communities to make sure they can reopen safely -- with the equipment that they need -- and continue to provide our children with the quality education they deserve."
The PPE are part of a supply acquired by Monroe County to address health and safety needs related to the pandemic. The county is providing schools with cloth face masks, adult and pediatric surgical masks, gloves, adult and pediatric face shields, N-95 masks, gowns, thermometers and hand sanitizer.
"The support from Monroe County throughout this crisis has been amazing," said Mary Grow, superintendent of the East Irondequoit Central School District. "Every school district has been working diligently to come up with plans to make re-opening this fall as safe and as beneficial to our students and staff as possible and county leadership has been with us every step of the way. This donation of PPE equipment is just another example of how committed they are to helping us make this happen and we can't thank them enough."
In July, County Executive Bello and school leaders from 13 Finger Lakes counties announced the Finger Lakes Reopening Schools Safely Task Force, comprised of more than 40 leaders from the public health, health care, education and nonprofit sectors. Convened by Common Ground Health, the group continues its work to navigate the unprecedented process of reopening schools in the midst of a pandemic.
Throughout the pandemic, County Executive Bello has leveraged county resources to assist individuals, businesses, day cares, non-profit community organizations, hospitals, physician offices, first responders, independent living centers and now the school systems meet their needs for vital PPE. To date, the county has distributed nearly 10 million surgical masks, nearly 3 million sets of gloves, 500,000 cloth face masks, 84,000 face shields, 300,000 gowns and thousands of gallons of hand sanitizer.
