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Chinese Club of Western New York donates thousands of masks to doctors, nurses

The Chinese Club of Western New York donated 24,000 masks to help doctors and nurses on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The lack of personal protective equipment for hospital workers has been an ongoing problem, and now members of Western New York's Chinese community are coming together to help those on the coronavirus front lines.

The Chinese Club of Western New York donated 10,000 surgical masks to Kaleida Health this week. That's on top of 14,000 more masks that they donated last month to more than a dozen different hospitals and agencies across Western New York. 

All of the donations were made to help doctors and nurses on the front lines, and to say thank you. 

"We want to show our love," said Yanhong Na Baranski, president of the Chinese Club of Western New York. "We want to show the Chinese community the love and caring, the city, the country, and that other people understand too, that it's not our fault and don't say it's the Chinese virus."

The Chinese Club of Western New York, which is made up of about 100 families in our area, raised almost $50,000 in the past few weeks in order to purchase the masks.

The president of the Chinese Club of Western New York told 2 On Your Side's Melissa Holmes that while there has been animosity and hatred shown to the Chinese community in some parts of the country, for the most part they haven't really experienced that here. This virus affects everyone — no matter what race — so we all have to fight it together.

Anyone looking to donate money to help the Chinese Club of Western New York purchase more masks for medical workers can do so by clicking here.

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