Strangers are lending their RVS to frontline workers. You can, too
When Bailey Queen came home from work in March and early April, he followed a strict routine to avoid potentially infecting his family with coronavirus. He’d take off his EMT uniform in the garage, walk straight down the stairs to the basement and take a shower. He washed his uniform after every shift. His family prepared all of his meals and left them outside his door.
But now, 23-year-old Queen is breathing a little easier. He’s camped out in front of his Thornton house in an RV, temporarily on loan from Arvada resident Joe Brown — who, until a few weeks ago, was a total stranger.
Self-isolating in Brown’s RV means Queen doesn’t have to worry so much about accidentally
the virus to his three younger siblings or his parents, who wave to him from the driveway or from inside the house.
“It’s pretty incredible that people are being as generous as they are, to do this for free,” Queen said. “I’m very, very grateful for it. It’s making our lives a lot safer.”
The two men connected through RVS 4 MDS, a national grassroots organization formed in the wake of the pandemic that matches healthcare professionals and other frontline workers with RV owners.
The group started organically in late March when Texas mom Emily Phillips put out a call on Facebook, asking if anyone could spare an RV for her husband, an emergency room doctor. With help from an army of volunteers, the initiative has since spread to nearly all 50 states, plus Canada and Dubai; a Facebook group that helps match RV donors with frontline workers has grown to more than 30,000 members.
Like Queen, many healthcare professionals and first responders are doing their best to stay away from family members or roommates within their own homes, but worry they could still spread the highly contagious virus.
Colorado RV owners are more than happy to help.
“You sit there and you see all the stories of frontline workers who have to go back to their homes and risk infecting the rest of their family,” said Brown. “There’s not a lot I can do. I can’t sew masks for everybody. But we just felt this was something we could do to help.”
Similar efforts to provide housing for frontline workers are underway around the state. River Run RV Resort in Granby, for example, has made its vacation rentals available for free to healthcare professionals, relief workers and first responders. So far, traveling nurses working at Granby Medical Center and EMTS are taking advantage of the offer.
“We knew that River Run’s vacation rentals were uniquely suited to meet the needs of emergency workers,” said Dave Huber, the resort’s general manager. “With private entrances, kitchens and bathrooms, they provide built-in social distancing but, just as important, they offer comfort and a sense of home to people who really deserve that peace of mind right now.”
Several Colorado KOA campgrounds, working in partnership with RVS 4 MDS, are also providing free RV sites to first responders and healthcare workers. And a Denver-based organization called Housing Covid Heroes is providing medical professionals with free stays at hotels, condos, apartments and homes.
“We all want to do something to help in situations like this, and we’re all kind of uniquely in the same boat — people want to help, they often just don’t know how,” said Woody Faircloth, who founded Housing Covid Heroes and is a member of the leaderspreading ship team for RVS for MDS. “When they see something like this, they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, we’ve got an RV out in the back or in storage. Let’s go help somebody out.’ It’s the best of human nature.”
For Alan Pollack, a cardiovascular technologist who’s now working in the intensive care unit caring for Covid-19-positive patients at Rose Medical
Center, the RV now parked at the end of his Lakewood driveway has been a gift.
Though isolating is lonely (he celebrated his 40th birthday by himself in the RV), it’s given him peace of mind that he won’t bring coronavirus home to his wife and two kids. And, perhaps equally as important, it’s giving people a way to help the helpers.
“It feels good to help people,” he said. “Most people are trapped at home right now and can’t do anything. When people look back at this in 10 years, what are they going to say? ‘I sat at home.’ Some people are going to say, ‘I lent out my RV to this healthcare employee who is making a difference. And by helping them, I’m making a difference.’ It’s some way to feel that you’re doing something.”