The nonprofit has an opportunity to tell the story of how the organization adapted to tremendous external changes in the last year.
Almost overnight, Overlook Foundation pivoted to support our healthcare heroes at Overlook Medical Center as they battled a huge wave of COVID-19 patients that arrived, and stayed, for months on end. As one of the hardest hit hospitals in Union County, NJ, Overlook Foundation did all we could to ensure our care teams had everything they needed to be safe and to successfully navigate this crisis. Traditional campaign fundraising paused for several months while we pivoted to acquire, manage and distribute physical donations of hundreds of thousands of personal protective equipment items (surgical, N95 and cloth masks, gowns, gloves, hats, goggles), hand sanitizers, round-the-clock meals and snacks for hospital staff, cards of encouragement and thanks, iPads for patients to communicate with their families and physicians throughout the hospital, Ring cameras to monitor fragile patients, intubation boxes, clean clothes for patients to be discharged to home in, and so much more. We also received about $2MM in cash donations so the hospital could purchase other high-priority items they needed. The foundation staff adopted a shift work schedule to reduce the number of people inside our building at any given time without compromising our ability to be effective. Everyone had a secure laptop to work from home. Not only did our operations never cease, we were more effective than ever in working side-by-side with hospital clinicians and staff to support the suffering and frightened community. Once the vaccines had been supplied to Overlook Medical Center, Overlook Foundation leadership operationalized a community-based vaccine clinic that has administered over 35,000 vaccines to date.