County Public Health Dept Partner With Local Orgs to Distribute Test Kits

The Los Angeles of Public Health partnered with the Communities for a Safe Environment to distribute nearly 3,000 COVID-19 home testing kits. CFASE passed out 1,300 of the testing kits on Dec. 23 and another 1,600 kits a week later. After receiving a kit, a 28-year-old Wilmington woman tested positive, underscoring the importance of testing.

CFASE founder and executive director, Jesse Marquez, explained that the seeds of the partnership between government and local nonprofit organizations go back to 2018 when CFASE got a grant from the Harbor Community Benefit Foundation to create the Wilmington Emergency Preparedness Plan. In the process of researching and applying for that grant, Marquez and other community activists recognized the need to engage other types of networks out there.

FEMA, the state of California and Los Angeles County all have emergency call lists to which to distribute information but aren’t very good at outreach to community-based organizations. Due to this circumstance, Emergency Network Los Angeles was founded. ENLA is comprised of 40 plus affiliates with government agencies partnering with them.

Thermal Golden, Angelo Logan and Communities for a Safe Environment founder Jesse Marquez, right. Photo courtesy of CFASE