South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Out of toilet paper? Teen creates website to find coronavirus essentials
Grandview Preparatory School junior Blake Rand realized the magnitude the coronavirus pandemic had on everyday life when his parents and grandparents were unsuccessful at trying to purchase necessities like paper products and cleaning supplies.
Staying busy with his studies from his Lighthouse Point home after the Boca Raton school’s campus was shut down, the 17-year-old with aspirations to become a computer scientist wanted to help not only those related to him but also everyone in similarly frustrating situations.
“When the (coronavirus) crisis first started, everybody was kind of freaking out because they couldn’t get things like toilet paper and paper towels…and everything else they really needed,” Rand said. “So when even my mom couldn’t find the basic things, I went online and found places that had the stuff she needed.”
Then came the breakthrough moment when he decided to put the skills derived from his programming and math courses at Grandview Prep into the development of a nonprofit website — coronafinds.com — that could help people search online for essential products.
“All I was hearing about was people’s frustrations at going from store to store and finding empty shelves,” Rand said, whose desire to help others shows through his volunteer work at the local library and his service on Lighthouse Point’s Teen Advisory Board. “I knew this was something that could save time and effort for them.”
In the few weeks his website has been up and running, Rand has logged more than 6,000 views from across the nation. His endeavor even drew the attention and appreciation of State Rep. and former Broward County Commissioner Chip LaMarca.
LaMarca emailed Rand’s mother to express his gratitude for her son’s website.
“I am very proud of Blake,” Sally Rand said. “He’s doing something very positive and at a time when the need is so great.”
Coronafinds.com provides links to stores and similar outlets where people can order hard-to-find items from the convenience of their homes. Blake Rand is constantly searching the internet for available products and updates his website at least three times a day.
“As stock supplies dwindle, I get busy trying to find links to other sites where those supplies are posted as being in stock. It’s always changing and that makes it a constant challenge to find sites that have stuff,” he said.
Recently interviewed by a television station in Atlanta, he has discovered that people are finding his site primarily through Reddit and are spreading the word about his efforts. His primary goal is to assist the local population but he said he’s thrilled that the website has grown into a nationwide search vehicle.
“It makes me feel good that I’m helping out people who, as I said, have really been almost panicking over not being able to purchase or even find things they really need,” Blake Rand said. “It’s really cool to know (the website is) helping people not only in my community but also across the nation.”
Since his grandmother is disabled and can’t get out to find essentials, he knows firsthand the importance that his website brings to those whose lives were restricted even before the virus hit but are now in even more dire straits.
“I had someone call me almost in tears because they couldn’t find something normally so available like Tylenol, and Blake was able to get on his site and find it for her,” Sally Rand said. “That pretty much tells the importance of his story right there.”
She said many of those confined to their homes have thanked her son through Facebook, Nextdoor and other apps.