Over the past few months, AHRC New York City’s Administrative Services Department has coordinated the orders for and purchased hard-to-find PPE supplies. Many employees from across the agency have worked incredibly hard to ensure to the effective delivery of PPE, ensuring the safety of their colleagues and the people we support. Pamela Minkoff, Associate VP, Administrative Services, highlights a few of them here:
In late March, our healthcare vendor, Medline, told us that it was required to buy the complete allotment of PPE products before the end of each month; new allocations would then be determined for the next month. Mark Moore, Assistant Director for Administrative Services, worked for many days organizing this order for March and then worked all day on a Saturday and Sunday to put the individual site orders into Workplace before the month ended. Casey Barba, Office Manager for Family and Clinical Services; Nicole Marquez, Office Manager with Educational Services; and Jessica Macli, Office Manager with Employment and Business Services (EBS), also gave up parts of their Saturdays and Sundays to work closely with Mark to complete this order.
When we first started to buy PPE supplies, AHRC NYC immediately collaborated with different organizations to purchase bulk orders for masks. Things got interesting when we realized that we had to pick up masks from different areas within New York State. Matthew Hatcher and Samuel Emsell of the Camping & Recreation Department and Xsel Gutierrez of EBS each drove to Kingston, NY, on two separate occasions to pick up and drive masks back to NYC to be added to our centralized inventory stored at Bloomberg Residence in Queens. Xsel delivered masks to other Arc New York chapters in need on his drive home. Our mask inventory grew in part due to the help of these wonderful colleagues.
Danielle Eilenberg, Assistant Director with Residential Services, recommended a wholesaler in Brooklyn, Kayla’s Wholesale, Inc., to purchase much-needed PPE such as KN95 masks, surgical masks, isolation gowns, and face shields. The true bonuses of working Kayla’s are their excellent product pricing, no need for advance payments, pay upon delivery, and superb customer service. The entire agency should know how much each and every employee and individual receiving services has truly benefitted from Danielle’s recommendation! Faith Xikis, Dennis O’Brien, and David Parker, also of Residential Services, and Antonio Tomas and Marlon Mills of EBS deserve recognition for willingly amending their typical AHRC NYC day jobs and working with Admin Services’ Purchasing Department to help oversee the centralized AHRC NYC PPE Inventory stored at Bloomberg Residence and Cadman Plaza sites. This has been no easy task and we would not be as successful as we have been without these five colleagues at the helm!
