The Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS) has provided free drive-through testing for doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters and others on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS) has provided free drive-through testing for doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters and others on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the support of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF), in just one weekend ACCESS provided 562 free tests at locations in Dearborn and at Wayne State University in Detroit.
“That’s almost 600 people we were able to serve outside of overwhelmed and flooded hospital waiting rooms, allowing our doctors and health care professionals to treat more people more effectively, while also allowing more of our community’s health care professionals to get tested and back into their service roles,” ACCESS shared in a Facebook post.
Since beginning the drive-through testing program, ACCESS noted that in total 865 healthcare workers and first responders had been tested in drive-through sites in Dearborn and Detroit.
These tests are vital to "increase access to testing and lessening the overwhelming demands on our regional hospital systems,” Maha Freij, executive director of ACCESS told The Detroit News.
“It is moments like these that we are called on to live out our mission of serving our most vulnerable communities, while ensuring the well-being and safety of our staff and clients,” Hassan Jaber, president and CEO of ACCESS said in a press release.
ACCESS is connected to CMF through its national institution, Center for Arab American Philanthropy (CAAP), a national community foundation and a CMF member.
This latest effort is part of both WKKF’s and CAAP’s larger strategies to support communities during the COVID-19 outbreak. WKKF has spotlighted a number of grantees providing health care, food and other basic needs to communities nationwide.
“As a community foundation, the safety and well-being of the communities we serve is always our top priority, and in the wake of COVID-19, that commitment does not waver,” CAAP wrote in a blog post.
Want more?
View ACCESS’s post on COVID-19 testing.
Read WKKF’s list of grantees supports.
