Mercer medical students respond to those in need amid COVID-19

Mercer University School of Medicine students have organized their own COVID-19 response team.

Batcher says the food bank typically holds 10 to 12 mobile food pantries a week.

But now... it's doing 18 a week.

Medical students at mercer university are organizing their own covid-19 response team.

41nbc's peyton lewis talked with some of them to get a closer look how they're helping.

0:07-0:28 0:52-1:13 marissa d'souz says she wanted to help kick start a relief effort for those being impacted by the covid-19 pandemic in her own community.

It's really hard to see people that we care about and people that we know, you know all of our attendants, all of our mentors in the hospital, they're still there are they're going home to kids, and i don't know.

It's scary for them, so any way that we can kind of help, it just absolves some guilt.

D'souza, along with several other third year medical students at mercer university have started mercer's covid-19 student response team.

They're offering to make masks for hospitals in need, delivering groceries to elderly and immune compromised people, and providing child care for health care workers.

Third year student kahul patel says the response team is also collecting supplies for medical centers in need.

We launched our ppe so we are collecting masks, cloves, and hand sanitizer at all of our campuses now, so in macon, in savannah and in columbus as well.

The group is using its website to organize volunteers, facilitate donations for personal protective equipment for medical facilities, and raise money through go-fund-me to even buy supplies.

Patel says the group has two main goals.

I think our overarching goal is to just unify our response under 1 name so that 1 we can reach as many people as possible, and 2 if anyone is looking to c1 3 b13 volunteer to be able to see c1 3 b13 what's available.

In macon, peyton lewis, 41 nbc news.

The covid-19 response team is constantly searching for new volunteers, and you don't need to be a part of mercer's school of medicine to help.

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