Quinnipiac University School of Law’s Health Law Society and undergraduate organization Handprints for Sunshine are conducting a food, personal protective equipment (PPE) and sanitary supplies drive through Oct. 16, to support COVID-19 frontline workers.

The organizations are asking for non-perishable food items such as dry goods, canned products, condiments and spices. They are also requesting toiletries, disinfectants and PPE such as gowns, shoe covers, gloves, masks, face shields and other medical coverings.

Nathaly Tomayo, third-year law student at Quinnipiac, is the president of the Law Health Society.

“If anyone wants to drop off a donation, there’s going to be a box at the entrance to the law school as well as in the student lounge area in the medical school, and there’s also going to be a box at the student center at the Mount Carmel campus, the undergraduate campus,” Tomayo said.

Alexa Massad, a second-year law student and vice president of the Law Health Society, said the drive is also taking monetary donations.

“Since we understand a lot of students are not on campus right now and unable to bring physical donations, we are accepting monetary donations as well via Venmo,” Massad said.

Graduate and law students who would like to contribute can send donations through Venmo to @GabbyIzzo. Undergraduate students who want to donate are asked to Venmo @FrancescaMachiano.

Massad said that the organizations are also relying on monetary donations from local grocery stores.

“We’re working with a number of grocery stores, and a few of them have already determined that they will be helping provide some gift cards so we probably won’t be providing specific items from the grocery stores,” Massad said. “They’ve agreed to give some monetary donations.”

Contributions will be donated to the Ronald McDonald House Charities and the Hartford Healthcare Network, according to the Law Health Society executive board.

Gabriella Izzo, a second-year law student and the secretary of the Law Health Society, said the organization is trying to help in any way it can.

“We’re definitely going to try to bring more food products to the Ronald McDonald House (charities) and try to bring the PPE supplies to Hartford Healthcare,” Izzo said. “Just really try to bring what each organization needs at this time.”

Tomayo said that the Law Health Society’s focus is on the health of the local community, so they saw this as an important opportunity to help.

Francesca Marchiano is a junior nursing major and the president of Handprints for Sunshine.

“At the end of the drive, our goal is to raise awareness about the situation and have students and faculty be more open-minded about the situation and how our community is affected by it,” she said.

The organizations sponsoring the drive aim to include the entire Quinnipiac community in the efforts.

“I think that was a big reason why we decided it might be a good idea to pair with an undergraduate association that had similar goals and wanted to get involved and try to help the community in a larger way,” Izzo said. “We thought this way it would be almost like a cross-campus event that we could collect more, get more campus involvement and try to really reach a larger portion of the Quinnipiac community.”