MASK INITIATIVE GOES VIRAL

By SHAGORIKA EASWAR

Gurrinderpal Pannu co-founded Conquercovid-19 with a group of like-minded professionals with the aim to distribute as much personal protective equipment (PPE) as possible to areas that the government was unable to reach.

The senior lawyer with Enbridge Gas practises in a number of areas  including litigation, risk management, privacy law, regulatory and energy law. This past April, he assisted Enbridge in obtaining the approval of a $106 million pipeline in the Windsor Essex region to help replace an older pipeline and bring an important economic resource to the local economy. 

Prior to his work with Enbridge Gas, he was a litigation lawyer with the Toronto Transit Commission and received the  Executive Branch Award for outstanding achievement. He is also the chair of the Ontario One Call Compliance Committee. 

The pivot from fighting cases in a courtroom to helping fight the pandemic sprang from the realization that there just wasn’t enough PPE to go around. Pannu’s training in emergency and disaster response came in handy.

“At Enbridge, we take safety very seriously and there’s a team at work that can assemble very quickly, specifically tasked to deal with the emergency.”

Pannu would be the risk officer, and also figure out ways to allocate resources. They formed a pandemic team and he was looking at the emergency orders from the government and how they impacted their work from a legal perspective. People checking out gas leaks need PPE and he kept hearing they didn’t have enough masks.

He needed to stop being a lawyer and see how he could help, thought Pannu, and began contacting people on his WhatsApp chain. Did they know where one could get masks?

Nafisa, who works at Bayshore Health, responded. How many did they need?

“They send personal support workers to clients’ homes and need PPE for employees so knew where to source them from,” says Pannu.  “But the quantity we wanted was too small. This highlighted the reason why many medical offices and dental clinics didn’t have them – they can’t buy in millions like the government can.”

They came up with the idea of piggybacking on Bayshore’s order along with a few other companies that also needed PPE. Bayshore ordered a large quantity, thereby getting a better price. Pannu’s team and the others carved out their portion.

The group “grew organically”, he says. From five people who didn’t know each other but came together to address the need of the hour. Sulemaan Ahmed and Khadija were working on how to get ventilators. Someone said Pannu could help that group and so the group grew. It is now a team of over 100 volunteers from all backgrounds: lawyers, doctors, engineers, business professionals and medical students. All of them had their contacts who had their own contacts, each with unique strengths and skill sets.

A doctor came up with the idea of connecting with patients using baby monitors in light of the shortage of PPE and through this network of contacts, ToysRUs donated 200 baby monitors. Sulemaan put out a thank-you message and a marketing professional who saw it said he knew someone in VTech. They gave 400.

Ebaad, who does pro bono work for the group, connected them with Volvo who provided 15 brand new SUVs – filled with gas – that were used to deliver the equipment they were collecting.

XYZ Storage offered their facility and staff and the first donation drive organized there collected 3500 items of PPE. While just a few days prior they might have been thrilled with that, they realized they could upscale.

One of the keys to their success was social media. Their site asked two questions: What do you need? How can you help? They created a spreadsheet to identify who was asking for what. They assembled data. The need for supplies is determined by an intake form on the website and a medical advisory team comprising ER doctors, GP, radiologists, and infectious disease specialists triage the requests.

“The system is nimble so we can quickly deploy PPE to the areas that really need them,” says Pannu. “For example, our team was able to deliver 1000 N95 masks to Altamount Care in Scarborough shortly after the media reported the death of a personal support worker (PSW).”

Through their drives and partnerships with Canadian Tire, Best Buy and others, they collected hundreds of thousands of items, including PPE such as surgical masks, respirators and face shields, procedural gloves, gowns, as well as baby monitors and tablets (such as Samsung, iPad, etc.), and other items for shelters including diapers, baby formula, and feminine hygiene products. Because it’s not just a hospital issue – the homeless and those in shelters need things, too.

The team has distributed almost 400,000 of these items to 180 sites ranging from hospitals, community clinics, long term care facilities, doctors’ offices, homes for people with special needs, shelters, etc., in 54 cities across five provinces. They partnered with Bombardier to deliver 10,000 masks and face shields to Nova Scotia in honour of Kirsten Beaton, the nurse who was one of the victims in the mass shooting.

“Nobody wants to leave home but they all want to help, social media came to the rescue,” says Pannu.

Prime minister Justin Trudeau thanked Conquercovid19 and ToysRUs, generating a buzz around the group.

Shopify founder Tobi Lütke and his wife Fiona Mckean donated $1 million via their Thistledown Foundation. In eleven days they raised nearly $2 million dollars, all of the money being used to procure urgently needed PPE and other items.

Hockey legend Hayley Wickenheiser who was in Toronto doing medical training had tweeted that doctors needed supplies. Actor Ryan Reynolds retweeted that.

“He has 35 million followers!” says Pannu. “When Hayley and Ryan partnered with us, suddenly even people who didn’t know about us got interested. Our social media blew up.”

They had created a t-shirt for the volunteers and Ontario premier Doug Ford requested one when he drove up to personally drop off donated masks. He then wore it at a press conference. Reynolds created a short video extolling the virtues of the “boring black” t-shirt and now everyone wanted one. It became what Pannu calls a “Canadian story”.

They got more made, selling them for $25 each and had sold 16,000 the last time he checked.

“We’re raising money, but for me, the t-shirts are a symbol of hope. They distract from the tough times at work or at home with the kids. I believe they galvanize Canadians and show that when things seem dire, we can all can come together as strangers in a community to conquer COVID-19.”

 Pannu’s father came from “extremely humble beginnings” in a Jat farming family in India. But he valued education and put himself through school, rising to a high position in government before immigrating to Canada in 1969. He settled in Manitoba, where he lived for some months before moving to Ontario. His wife joined him in 1971 and Pannu was born in Etobicoke and raised there and in Milton. His parents faced enormous challenges, he says. They had to learn to adapt, learn the language, retrain.

“My brother Rupinder and I had it so much easier. Of course, there was some racism, and you feel it, but not so much. In  high school, I became more aware of, and involved in, our culture and heritage. I didn’t really apply myself at school – I was more interested in hockey! I was good, and went right up to AAA. My dad encouraged me, but also made it very clear that I should focus on academics. He was the former president of the Bramalea-Gore-Malton riding for the Liberals and he was instrumental in getting a number of South Asians elected. From him, I learned the importance of giving back. I still play, but I am grateful for his tough love. I am where I am today because of the lessons I absorbed from my parents. And because of the love and support of my beautiful wife Shafreen. She’s a Director of Operations at Rogers. We both met at the University of Waterloo and she’s the one who encouraged me to pursue law. She’s truly incredible. Works full-time, never wants to take the limelight. We’re best friends and she’s my biggest champion.”

The couple have two children, Ariyan, 7, and Anaya, 4.

“Try not to be the smartest person in the room,” responds Pannu when asked for tips for newcomers. “Keep learning, ask questions.”

He also stresses the importance of networking. “I can’t underscore that enough. It’s so much harder to succeed alone. We needed to network to pull off what we did.”

And he tells people not to give up. “No matter how difficult the challenge, how seemingly insurmountable, have the will power to push ahead. Things go wrong, there are setbacks, but opportunities also arise in a crisis. And when that happens, be prepared to make the most of them.”

What’s next for Conquercovid19? When the current crisis is behind us – and we have to believe that will happen – do they all just wind up and head home or do they direct the organizational capacity and the knowledge gained elsewhere?

“Our goal right  now is to maximise benefit from what we’ve raised,” says Pannu. “After that? We’ll see how we can maybe leverage the brand to see where we can go with this. What we do know is that we’re not in this to raise endless amounts of money. We’re working on a resource document that brings together our social media initiatives, the distribution network, the logistics...creating a kit, if you will, that can be applied to other situations. We’re thinking of developing a course to show how professionals can donate time to accomplish a big result.

“Our team is mainly comprised of South Asians. Sometimes, our communities are in the news for the wrong reasons, but this was one way of showing the good we can do together. As Hayley said, ‘These are good Canadians getting good things done’.

“It’s never been about me. It’s about how if we can rise together, we can help others rather than just accept fate. The key to success is not one person, it’s looking at an issue together in multiple ways.”

There’s a documentary in the works to capture what the team created.

More at www.conquercovid19.ca.

• Grant’s is proud to present this series about people who are making a difference in the community. Represented by PMA Canada (www.pmacanada.com).