Brendan Bernicker ’22 Starts Nonprofit to Distribute Face Masks

Law School student Brendan Bernicker ’22 and two friends from college have founded the COVID Response Network, a nonprofit dedicated to donating 100,000 non-medical grade face masks to hospitals, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, retirement homes, and jails and prisons during the coronavirus pandemic.

The nonprofit began when Bernicker’s friends, who had a business selling phone wallets from China, were able to source face masks from a supplier. The three friends established the nonprofit and began fundraising and networking with community organizations.

So far, the group has ordered 100,000 masks, paid for with money raised through the nonprofit and funds raised by local partners in Pittsburgh, New York City, and Atlanta. The nonprofit was also able to connect partners to factories to negotiate better prices than they had previously been paying for masks and helped handle the logistics of importing and distributing the masks on their behalf.

“Hospitals, soup kitchens, and homeless shelters are experiencing crushing demand right now,” Bernicker said. “We need to take care of the people who take care of us, and make sure that they have the protective equipment they need to do their work as safely as possible.”