Wesleyan’s Chinese Community Raises Funds, Purchases Medical Supplies for Hospitals Treating Coronavirus Patients

Wesleyan’s Chinese community (particularly students and parents) recently banded together to help their fellow citizens who are battling with the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19.

From Feb. 2–15, the student-initiated group WesInAction raised more than $23,000, which was used to purchase medical equipment for hospitals affected in the epicenter of the outbreak, Hubei province, China. WesInAction members also provide the campus community with facts about the outbreak and its prevention, and work to promote awareness of racial discrimination on campus.

WesInAction student volunteers have done extensive research on COVID-19 and created a brochure that highlights key facts and statistics about it, aiming to use knowledge to ease anxiety and further understanding of the unknowns around the virus outbreak. They also collaborated with the Wesleyan parent community in China to raise funds and to bring medical equipment directly to frontline health workers who have been reporting medical shortages in Hubei province.

Students, alumni, and Wesleyan families in China contributed to the cause.

On Feb. 16, WesInAction delivered seven sets of oxygen concentrators and ventilators and 26,000 pairs of medical gloves to the First People’s Hospital of Xiaochang County and the People’s Hospital of Dawu County in Xiaogan, Hubei province.

The students involved in this project include Huiqin “Greta” Hu ’20, Maxine Go ’20, Maria Tan ’22, Oliver Cho ’22, Fiona Sun ’20, Karen Xu ’22, Binxin Wang ’20, Venus Cai ’20, John Wang ’20,  Xiangqing Zhang ’22, Xinyue Zhang ’21, Zewei “Whiskey” Liao ’22, Yuan Yuan ’22, Shaoxuan Tian ’22, Jinjia Hu ’23, Shuyuan Liu ’22, Linus Mao ’23, Yuki Yu ’20, Zhuo Chen ’20, Hairihan Hanson ’22, Kathy Huang ’20, Yihan Lin ’21, Kate Liu ’22, and Alexa Zhang ’23. The parent-organizing group includes Lina Li P’21, Hong Yang P’20, Yanhong Fan P’23, and Ying Wang P’21.

Greta Hu initiated the WesInAction group.

“Me and other Chinese students were spending so much time reading news about the coronavirus and its outbreak in China, but the news was always so upsetting,” she said. “I wanted to do something positive and make a contribution. And it was indeed very encouraging and heartwarming—almost therapeutic in a way—when I saw so many responded to this initiative after the campaign kicked off.”

Between Feb. 24 and March 1, WesInAction was featured on eight digital billboards of major department stores and 6,000 digital screens in office buildings in Beijing by Beijing All Media and Culture Group Co. Watch the video below:

Additional photos are below: