Since the start of COVID-19, The UPS Foundation has committed more than $21 million in funding, in-kind and technical support for local and global efforts in the fight against and recovery of COVID-19. This investment will secure beneficiary support in healthcare, including personal protective equipment (PPE), food security, education, and financial and economic sustainability.
The UPS Foundation has contributed an abundance of resources, funds, and in-kind support. Here are a few highlights of support provided in recent months:
- Early efforts to mitigate the escalation of COVID-19 coronavirus included providing more than four million masks to communities in China.
- In March, The UPS Foundation announced initial support of COVID-19 relief efforts in the form of cash grants and in-kind services totaling $6 million to Humanitarian Relief & Resilience program partners, United Way agencies and community-based non-profits and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
- To date, The UPS Foundation has approved 122 local grants totaling more than $1.4 million focusing on food security, education, financial sustainability, and healthcare.
- Provided more than 100 in-kind shipments of critical PPE, educational and food supplies to food pantries, first responders, hospitals, senior living facilities, homeless shelters, and homebound students.
- Funding and support of nearly 700 local United Ways providing COVID-19 specific relief to more than 4,000 partner agencies delivering financial assistance, access to food, housing and shelter assistance, and mental health support.
- The UPS Foundation and UPS Public Affairs, in collaboration with The Women Exporter Program partner, International Trade Center, held a global webinar for 500 women business owners and entrepreneurs this week to support small businesses impacted by this crisis.
- Since the McLane-UPS Emergency Meals-To-You partnership began in April, UPS has delivered 139,356 meal packages, each containing 10 lunch meals, or more than 1.3 million school lunch replacement meals for children sheltering at home.
- The Salvation Army and The UPS Foundation continue to coordinate the distribution of food packs to seniors and vulnerable families. Twenty truckloads containing 56,000 food packs have been delivered through April 26.
- Funding for The American Logistics Aid Network launched its new COVID-19 Intelligence Center this week through funding from The UPS Foundation. This center provides trucking companies with the latest information on travel risks due to state and county level COVID-19 declarations, including closures and other information.
- Funding for Operation HOPE continues to support financial counseling to families or small businesses experiencing hardship.
- The UPS Foundation remains a key consultative partner with multiple global coalitions including the World Health Organization, World Economic Forum, Pandemic Supply Chain Network and Private Sector Roundtable for the Global Health Security Agenda, providing supply chain intelligence and helping to organize the engagement of the private sector in the response. These high-level coalitions allow the Foundation to advance global efforts through its own networks and expertise.
- The Foundation is sharing best practices on how to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and safely navigate the roads when making necessary deliveries with Fleet Forum, a UPS grantee that trains humanitarian drivers worldwide.
- “Our role in serving communities is clear. We’re tapping into the power of The UPS Foundation,” said Eduardo Martinez, president of The UPS Foundation and UPS chief diversity and inclusion officer. “The time for action is right now. By providing funding to the non-profit organizations helping to support our communities, we’re helping to bolster the support network that will be needed as we eventually enter the recovery phase.”
UPS subsidiary UPS Flight Forward (UPSFF) will use drones to deliver prescription medicines from a CVS pharmacy to The Villages, Florida for the largest U.S. retirement community, home to more than 135,000 residents. The service will use Matternet’s M2 drone system.
UPS announced the company is managing and brokering 25 charter flights in support of Project Airbridge, a coordinated effort between the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), numerous countries and the private sector designed to expedite the arrival of critical supplies needed in U.S. hospitals. Supplies being delivered include masks, surgical gowns, gloves, medical swabs, and thermometers.
UPS’s Healthcare division opened a new 450,000 square-foot healthcare distribution center with dedicated space for FEMA. The facility is located just a few miles from UPS Worldport, the company’s automated global air hub, in Louisville, KY. With that proximity, UPS has the ability to quickly fulfill orders for delivery overnight, anywhere in the U.S.
UPS Support for Preparedness and Mitigation of Pandemics is a strategic aspect of The UPS Foundation’s Humanitarian Relief and Resilience Program. The UPS Foundation and the US Chamber Foundation have collaborated to create a suite of free business resilience tools called “Resilience in a Box Tools” to help be better prepared for the unexpected, including natural and man-made disasters, and the ongoing Coronavirus outbreak.
In the aftermath of the West Africa Ebola Crisis UPS, Henry Schein, and Johnson & Johnson led private sector efforts to engage with the World Food Programme, the World Health Organization and World Economic Forum to form the Pandemic Supply Chain Network. to ensure a coordinated approach to future pandemic crises. This group has continued to engage regularly and also to convene at the World Economic Forum in Davos. UPS also supports the Private Sector Roundtable, which supports the Global Health Security Agenda.
In recent weeks the Pandemic Supply chain Network has held regular calls with the WEF and WHO. Michael Griffin of the World Health Organization has led joint calls with the WEF engaging the private sector, including suppliers and logistics companies to give and receive situational updates on Coronavirus.
The UPS Foundation, Henry Schein and J&J and other health care companies and logistics providers continue to work closely with the WHO to share essential information on PPE production timelines, inventory, and supply chain capacities and challenges that are pertinent to addressing the medical needs required by Coronavirus spread.