News
A group of more than 100 Lehigh University students and their families, all members of the Chinese community, rallied together to support St. Luke’s University Health Network in this time of great need.
What started out as an idea for a small fundraising campaign turned into a life-saving initiative to purchase N95 and disposable 3-ply face masks – critical personal protective equipment (PPE) – to help keep our Network’s frontline caregivers safe as they fight back against COVID-19.
The fundraiser was initiated by the Zhengnan Chen Family and Yicheng Gao Family – who also managed all the bookkeeping for the donations. Originally, the students and their families had coordinated the purchase of 4,000 masks, but thanks to the incredible generosity of the Liwen Fu Family, who alone contributed an additional 2,000 masks, a total of 6,000 masks were shipped to the Lehigh Valley and provided to St. Luke’s. For the students, this was a way of expressing gratitude and respect to local healthcare providers and the Lehigh Valley community that has felt so much like home for them.
“The students felt passionate about doing all they could to help,” shares Dr. Jing (Tiffany) Li, a professor at Lehigh University who helped coordinate the shipment. “Their wish was to donate the personal protective equipment to St. Luke’s to help those on the frontlines, who are doing all they can to keep our community safe.”
Even though the students’ families were also recovering from the tragic impact of the virus in China, they worked tirelessly to secure the masks as quickly as they possibly could because they knew there was a PPE shortage in the United States.
“It is an inspiring display of support,” says Ben Guerin, Manager of Occupational Medicine Sales at St. Luke’s. “For these students and their families to step up in such a significant way, despite fighting their own COVID-19 battle back at home in China, shows true selflessness. We are experiencing a global pandemic, but we are also witnessing communities coming together from — quite literally — across the world. It’s so encouraging to see.”
To learn more about opportunities to support St. Luke’s University Health Network in the fight against COVID-19, please click here. The Network is graciously accepting monetary gifts to its COVID-19 Response Fund, as well as donations of blood, PPE, and other supplies to help keep our frontline caregivers and patients safe.
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Media Contact
Sam Kennedy, Corporate Communications Director, 484-526-4134, samuel.kennedy@sluhn.org
About St. Luke’s
Founded in 1872, St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN) is a fully integrated, regional, non-profit network of more than 15,000 employees providing services at 11 hospitals and 300 outpatient sites. With annual net revenue greater than $2 billion, the Network’s service area includes 11 counties: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey. Dedicated to advancing medical education, St. Luke’s is the preeminent teaching hospital in central-eastern Pennsylvania. In partnership with Temple University, St. Luke’s created the Lehigh Valley’s first and only regional medical school campus. It also operates the nation’s longest continuously operating School of Nursing, established in 1884, and 34 fully accredited graduate medical educational programs with 263 residents and fellows. St. Luke’s is the only Lehigh Valley-based health care system with Medicare’s five- and four-star ratings (the highest) for quality, efficiency and patient satisfaction. St. Luke’s is both a Leapfrog Group and Healthgrades Top Hospital and a Newsweek World’s Best Hospital. In 2019, three of IBM Watson Health’s 100 Top Hospitals were St. Luke’s hospitals. St. Luke’s University Hospital has earned the 100 Top Major Teaching Hospital designation from IBM Watson Health seven times total and five years in a row. St. Luke’s has also been cited by IBM Watson Health as a 50 Top Cardiovascular Program. Utilizing the Epic electronic medical record (EMR) system for both inpatient and outpatient services, the Network is a multi-year recipient of the Most Wired award recognizing the breadth of the SLUHN’s information technology applications such as telehealth, online scheduling and online pricing information. St. Luke’s is also recognized as one of the state’s lowest cost providers.
