STATUS – Building Capacity to face the next COVID waves and the rest of fire season
9/28/23: We’re on the radio! Hear our 10:05AM KALW 91.7 FM San Francisco live interview. We’re also visiting the Disasters Expo in Anaheim – contact us if you’d like to connect further!
We’re seeking donors, volunteers, and partnerships.
Air Quality stayed deteriorated at the California-Oregon border for much of September, but has heavily improved across the state – use apps like Airvisual and PurpleAir to track particulate pollution near you!
Help us today!
Fire Season + COVID rising!
As COVID ticks up again, many West Coast cities also have a seasonal need for masks and air shelters due to wildfire smoke. Mask Oakland began and is still best known for our work during fire seasons 2017-2023 distributing smoke-filtering masks to unhoused communities stuck outside. The West Coast is seeing record-breaking fires season after season, so we are building long-term capacity for climate resilience and health justice.
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As featured in KQED, Washington Post, SF Chronicle, New York Times, WBUR, New Yorker, Guardian… (link)
Our 2020 COVID 19 Response
In March and April 2020, we emptied our fire season storage to provide thousands of N95 masks to healthcare workers in the Bay Area and sent hundreds to Los Angeles nurses, all to help save lives at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
COVID-19 has shocked and devastated vulnerable communities, and we don’t know how long it will last. We do know that everyone needs masks, especially those with no place to shelter-in-place, the unhoused. Using the insights and relationships from 3 fire seasons of mask distribution during toxic smoke, we are helped vulnerable communities get the PPE they need in the East Bay and beyond.
Before the fire smoke returned, we provided 15,000+ 3-ply surgical masks to houseless and related community organizations May-July. The smoke-filtering masks we handed out also provided protection against COVID.
We strongly support and believe Black Lives Matter, and so we also provided several thousand masks to Oaklanders protesting the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in June.
Then in August, a series of unprecedented lightning storms led to the worst fires and accordingly the longest and most severe smoke conditions ever in the Bay Area. We gave out our remaining N95s, and with that supply chain devastated by the pandemic, switched to KN95s. We acquired and distributed 100,000 KN95 masks over the course of the fire season and the rest of 2020, and also connected organizers in Seattle and across Oregon to mask distribution partners of ours to provide tens of thousands of masks to wildfire smoke relief efforts locally.
Background: Direct community aid since 2017
Mask Oakland is a grassroots initiative that emerged in smoke and fire to provide the most vulnerable in our communities with the simplest recommended tool: N95 respirator masks.
In 2018, we used social media to raise funds for and deliver over 85,000 masks, more than all Bay Area governments. We focus on direct outreach to the homeless in Oakland and also reached provided thousands of masks to Berkeley, San Francisco, Sacramento and Modesto, working with dozens of community organizations to expand our reach.
In 2019 we mobilized again during the short but intense smoke from Kincade Fire, delivering thousands of masks, supporting others replicating our model in Sonoma and beyond, and using our social media presence to demand accountability for fires caused by undermaintained electrical equipment.
Next Steps
The work continues – preparing for the 2023 fire season and staying alert for other opportunities to protect folks f. Please give your support today.
As a project of Social Good Fund, a 501(c)3 organization, all donations to Mask Oakland are tax-deductible!
Thanks to all our volunteers and donors for your ongoing support!
