Seven Arrows Donates Masks

By SARAH SHMERLING | Editor-in-Chief

As NPR reports that the country is facing an “alarming shortage” of protective equipment, Pacific Palisades’ Seven Arrows Elementary School donated masks from the school’s emergency preparedness kits to help local healthcare providers responding to COVID-19.

“The school took action when they found out that a faculty member’s husband on the front lines at Harbor-UCLA was dealing with a shortage of personal protective equipment for healthcare workers and patients infected with COVID-19,” representatives from the school shared in a statement.

The school provided Harbor-UCLA Medical Center’s Medical Intensive Care Unit and emergency department with 300 brand new personal protective masks in hopes that it will help the hospital deal with the short supply affecting the nation.

“The students are safe with their families engaging in distance learning, and the masks were just sitting there in our storage,” Head of School and Founder Margarita Pagliai said. “This qualifies as a disaster and this very small act can make a huge difference.”

These masks protect doctors and nurses who are exposed to coronavirus in facilities across the country, but they are not just found in hospitals—they are also used by woodworkers, nail technicians and other workers, who are now being encouraged to check their storerooms and donate supplies.

Seven Arrows, a kindergarten through sixth grade school that focuses on “education that fuses rigorous academics with world culture and the arts,” temporarily closed its campus starting Friday, March 13, in response to COVID-19. Distance learning for students began on Tuesday, March 17.

In the past, students have held make and bake sales for charities, protested restaurants that use single-use plastics, and fed the homeless along the Santa Monica bike path.

“This type of leadership is a part of the school’s DNA and mission that upholds a commitment to both the local and global community,” the statement concludes.