Coronavirus: Tri-Valley Volunteers 'Working Around The Clock'

TRI-VALLEY, CA — When off-duty Dublin High School teacher Michael D'Ambrosio first founded Facebook group "Tri-Valley Community Help During Shelter In Place" a couple of weeks ago, he was armed with dozens of do-gooders itching to find a way to help their vulnerable neighbors during the shelter-in-place order.

Now his group is home to 1,400 members who have helped feed the hungry, provided supplies for the needy and high-risk, and forged a subgroup of hundreds of volunteers sewing cotton masks from a pattern shared online. Volunteers respond to and fulfill requests from people in need of help within less than a day, he said.

"Every day it's something," D'Ambrosio said. "I think it'll only get busier in the next couple of weeks."

Volunteers found their first opportunity working with Tri-Valley Haven and helping the nonprofit fill a need for drivers willing to take a refrigerated truck from stores to shelters. Many of the nonprofit's usual volunteers were older and could no longer safely perform their volunteer work.

"Tri-Valley Community Help" volunteers have driven Tri-Valley Haven's trucks on a daily basis, D'Ambrosio said.

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Volunteers have collected gift cards for grocery stores, non-perishable items for food banks running low, disinfectant wipes for hospitals, clothing and even board games. Some scour the internet looking for posts from Tri-Valley residents in need.

People who have never sewn are "working around the clock" to create masks," he said. Others drop off supplies for more able sewers.

One family requested diapers. Within hours volunteers scrounged together 16 cases of diapers — so many diapers that the family could not take them all, he said. The rest were donated to a local charity.

The group has served parents who have lost jobs, single moms in shelters who can't leave and patients in need, D'Ambrosio said.

It's moving to see volunteers so willing to help, D'Ambrosio said.

"We ask so much of our community," he said. "It's just good to give back."

View the "Tri-Valley Community Help" and "Bay Area Cotton Masks" groups on Facebook for more information on volunteering or getting help.

Read more:

• Tri-Valley Finds The 'Social' In Social Distancing
• California Coronavirus: Latest Updates On Cases, Orders, Closures