Home: Who We Are

Who We Are

UNMC CoRe: Covid Relief is an interdisciplinary student-run initiative in conjunction with UNMC that is designed to connect students and community members with opportunities to assist throughout the COVID-19 outbreak.

What We Do

Childcare & Pet care for front line healthcare workers
Community Mask Sewing
PPE donations and distributions
Contact Tracing

Get Involved

Now accepting monetary donations for cloth mask supplies!

Initiatives

Childcare & Pet care

Support for Public Health Departments

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In coordination with UNMC's College of Public Health, student volunteers are paired with public health departments state-wide to support contact tracing, communications, data analysis, and various other initiatives as needed. UNMC CoRe recently joined forces with the College of Public Health's Student Response Team to establish a unified home for student engagement involving
COVID-19 related Public Health initiatives.

Childcare & Pet care- We are no longer providing this service as our student volunteers have returned to clinical rotations

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Our student volunteers provide childcare, pet care, & errands t0 healthcare workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis. Healthcare workers will be matched with a small group of students based on availability and preferences noted on their respective application forms. Students and healthcare workers will then create group communication to ensure that all childcare and pet care shifts are accounted for. We currently have 20 healthcare families receiving full-time or supplemental childcare/pet care through our program.

Community Mask Sewing Program

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In partnership with Nebraska Medicine, student volunteers produce and distribute mask-sewing kits to over 300 community sewing volunteers. Kits that include all needed materials and instructions are dropped off at community members' doorsteps, with student volunteers returning to pick-up completed masks the following week. This program has facilitated the production of over 20,000 masks for Nebraska Medicine and organizations throughout the Omaha community.

PPE Donations and Distribution

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In conjunction with the Nebraska Medical Association and Metro-Omaha Medical Society, students facilitate the donation and distribution of manufactured personal protective equipment. We have distributed 40,000 face shields, 1,600 N95 & KN95 masks, and countless surgical masks/gloves/attire/sanitizing items to 131 clinics, hospitals, and federally qualified health centers in Omaha and greater Nebraska.

About Us

UNMC CoRe is a student-led, interdisciplinary program designed to provide student volunteers with opportunities to assist throughout the COVID-19 outbreak. At the beginning of the outbreak, area schools and daycares began shutting their doors to comply with social distancing policies. Around the same time, medical students were released from clinical duties and shifted to online learning environments. This combination resulted in residents and physicians with acute childcare needs and many medical students itching to assist during the outbreak. Thus, UNMC CoRe was born.

This program was started by two UNMC medical students who initially focused on harnessing the altruistic drive of fellow medical students to help provide childcare, pet care, and errands to residents. As the needs of the healthcare community increased, so did the program. The program now provides childcare and pet care to all residents, physicians, and members of the COVID teams at UNMC-Nebraska Medical Center and involves volunteers from all colleges on the UNMC campus. As the outbreak continued, other needs were identified in the community, and the program grew further to meet those needs. Other initiatives were added, including a partnership with Nebraska Medical Center where student volunteers transport mask sewing kits, complete with materials and instructions, to community volunteers to sew cloth masks for visitors and healthcare workers in the hospitals and clinics. We also began a partnership with Metro Omaha Medical Society and Nebraska Medical Association to facilitate the donation of personal protective equipment from local and national businesses/manufacturers to be distributed to area hospitals and clinics in need.

We have amassed over 230 student volunteers, provided part-time or full-time childcare/pet care to over 20 families, managed over 300 community mask sewing volunteers, facilitated the production of over 20,000 cloth masks, donated 40,000 face shields & 6,000 other PPE items to area hospitals and clinics, and expanded our leadership team to help facilitate this growth. We are continuing to assess the needs of our area and healthcare communities, with plans to further make a difference by expanding our program into a few new areas. We are a group of students dedicated to helping those on the frontlines in whatever way we can!

About Us