Acts of heroism can be quite simple these days. Members of our community are in need of help – and the people of Tacoma are doing their part to provide that support. We at WeRTacoma.com are going to feature some of those individuals as part of our campaign to #KickCovid.
Even with our day-to-day activities on hold, you can help the world #KickCOVID by staying home, washing your hands and giving recognition to local heroes who are on the front lines of the coronavirus fight. Know a hero or an organization who deserves a shout out? Post it to social media tagging @TACDefiance and using the hashtag #KickCOVID or email your story to DClark@WeRTacoma.com. Follow Tacoma Defiance and the Tacoma Rainiers on social media and check WeRTacoma.com as we continue to share organizations and individuals that you can support from the safety of your home.
So many around the South Sound are rising up, helping their neighbors. They’ve embraced the spirit of our region and their heroic actions are worthy of recognition. These Defiantly Tacoma spirits are the women and men keeping us going.
Meet Elizabeth Menta
Menta is a nurse working long shifts to keep us healthy. She is also participating in a project to personally craft personal protective equipment.
Sometimes, the crafters are health care professionals. In Tacoma, a pediatric nurse has started to engineer her own face masks. In between 12-hour shifts at her hospital, Elizabeth Menta has been researching material density and sewing patterns with the help of her mother, a seasoned seamstress.
She is nothing short of a hero.
Art with Purpose
Hilltop Artists are using this time away from group youth classes to do their part. Two members of the local glassblowing group are using their gifts to help out.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B-LNQ3ADkyC/
If you know other people crafting PPE in their house, or if you have extra masks in your home, MultiCare and other hospitals are seeking donations. Merit Construction is helping distribute masks as well. Between themselves, subcontractors, and their network, they know they can help our medical professionals.
In a time when supplies are desperately needed, with urgency on the rise every day, everything helps.
Fresh Fuel, Delivered
Local salad restaurant Crisp Greens delivered meals to St. Joseph’s (part of CHI Franciscan) and Tacoma General (MultiCare). Noble Tacomans purchased 200 meals for the healthcare workers who are tirelessly working to kick COVID-19 to the curb. Those medical professionals still have the standard load of injury and illness to take under their wing too.
Any and all of you that have donated funds or supplies, or volunteered to help our medical professionals are worthy of recognition. It’s something that has always been true, but it feels more pertinent in this trying time for our planet.
Looking for How You Can Help?
Even if you are Staying Home to Stay Healthy, there are ways to help. This can be something as simple as helping MultiCare with phone banking and other activities, UW-Medicine, CHI Franciscan, or Kaiser-Permanente. All of our health care providers are stretched thin and could use additional hands right now.
But the best thing you can do, more than anything else, is Stay Home, Stay Healthy. It’s uncomfortable and goes against most of what we know to be natural in this modern day and age but it’s valiant too. It opens up space for the front-line superheroes to treat the ill and flattens the curve of this disease. That simple act will help this pandemic reach its end as much as anything else.
Being Defiantly Tacoma is our chosen way of life. Our city has a history of success – people who pushed through hardship and created a better world. We are all doing that these days. Some are going a bit further.
Joining the Carrs, Staley, Moss in our hallowed halls are people like Elizabeth, Tyler, Ethan, Corey, Sean. They are the heroes that this modern crisis calls for. Selflessly risking their own well-being to give to the general good.
Have you found a hero through all this? A story that inspires you in this time where good news is something to cling to? Let us know via social media or email DClark@WeRTacoma.com
Always together, We R Tacoma.
About Tacoma Defiance
Tacoma Defiance is the USL Championship affiliate of reigning MLS Cup Champion Seattle Sounders FC. You can follow The Future of Champions on Twitter (@TACDefiance), Facebook, and Instagram (@tacdefiance). We are #DefiantlyTacoma.
COVID-19 Information
More information on social distancing and how to prevent the spread of Covid-19 can be found at Tacoma-Pierce County Health. The most up-to-date information on how COVID-19 is affecting events at Cheney Stadium can be found here.
June 6, 2023