Today we’d like to introduce you to Qianwen (Coco) Ma and Kathleen (Kathy) Harcourt.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Qianwen (Coco) and Kathleen (Kathy). So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My name is Qianwen Ma (usually go by Coco) and I am currently a Rice MBA student. My mom works in a hospital in Hangzhou, China. In the past three months, her hospital has treated thousands of COVID-19 patients. One day I got a text message from my mom that says “I went to work this morning but didn’t get a mask from the hospital because the hospital had run out of it.” At the time, that was common for many health care workers in China. Many medical staff experienced mental breakdowns and physical breakdowns due to the lack of PPE, heavy workload and the amount of death they had to witness on daily basis.
When I saw the COVID-19 cases started rising exponentially in NYC in mid-March, I knew the pandemic is coming to US. I knew the healthcare workers here are going to face the same challenge. This is like watching the same horror movie a second time. The only difference is this time I am part of the horror movie and I can do something about it.
My name is Kathleen Harcourt (I go by Kathy) and I met Coco in our MBA classes. I had to pay for my university experience on my own and I struggled to pay my bills each month. I worked a part-time job at a Vitamin World in the mall while I went to classes at the University of Florida. I remember the weight of fear of potentially not being able to pay my tuition or my rent. Every once and a while, I would put food back on the shelf at the grocery stores because I knew I couldn’t afford all that was in my cart. I understand how challenging it is when you’re not sure if you can make payments and how important it is to receive a paycheck. It’s like a breath of air when you’ve been underwater a while.
When I heard the restaurants were closing and could only do take out, my heart went to those business owners and servers whom were worried about how they would weather from this storm and where their next breath of air would come from. I wanted to do something for them, and I felt ordering food to go simply wasn’t enough.
As Rice MBA students, we have learned the importance of small business to economy so Coco came up with the idea of purchasing food from local restaurants and send them to front-line healthcare workers treating COVID-19 patients. Once Coco shared her idea, we started working together to grow the #SnacksForMedStaff campaign.
At first, we only intended to spend our own money and just send a few meals. Once we told classmates what we were doing, people started giving us donations and contacts at other hospitals. To some degree, #SnacksForMedStaff took on a life of its own due to the need. We were just in the right place at the right time.
Has it been a smooth road?
Some of our biggest challenges have been learning how to scale our nonprofit from a minimum viable product into a more fine-oiled machine. Specifically, our first deliveries were sent by using UberEats and DoorDash. As we progressed, we learned from the restaurants that these delivery services can take up to a 30% cut on their profits which can even lead to losses on a sale. In order to maximize our impact per dollar donated, we then began to build a system around partnering with small local restaurants and hiring drivers so 100% of the proceeds could go to the local economy. Another challenge we face (as do all nonprofits) is how to fundraise more effectively so we can help as many business owners and hospital staff as we can. Lastly, due to the demand of the hospitals and limited funds, it has been a balancing act to decide where to focus our donations.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Snacks For Med Staff – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
Snacks For Med Staff is a Texas nonprofit with the dual goals of supporting small business owners and boosting the morale of medical staff who are treating #COVID19 patients on the front lines. We want to feed the medical staff mentally and physically. We leave them hand-written notes with their meals to let them know the community supports them. We try to support small businesses as they are at risk of shut down due to quarantine guidelines in place. We use a GoFundMe Campaign to help us fundraise.
Our first delivery was March 20th, and to date we have served 23 hospitals, in five states, over 2,100 meals, and raised over $15,000. Our largest presence is in Houston because it’s our home town and the majority of our donors live here. We also focus on serving some of the hardest hit cities including New York City, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia.
We are most proud of the fact that 100% of proceeds go directly toward the cause. Everyone on our team volunteers their hours for free. Our entire board (Coco Ma, Kathy Harcourt, Eric Schumacker, Lemboye Ayo-Vaughan, and Matthew Marand) are Rice graduate students who love our community and want to make a difference. We are using our skills learned through our graduate programs (MBA and Computer Science) to operate this nonprofit and use our degrees on solving real-life problems.
We believe our transparency in our transactions sets us apart in what we are doing as we show every donation and dollar spent on our web page. We are also a woman-led nonprofit.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
One of our favorite things about Houston is our medical resources. We have some of the largest and most prominent medical centers in the US which allow us to protect our citizens during this crisis. We also love how much Houstonians care about one another and how they want to make a difference. Houston is a very diverse city and is a true melting pot. We believe this makes everyone more open-minded to what other people’s situations may be like and thus more willing to give and help one another. Lastly, we love the southern hospitality people exude as well as all the amazing food.
Our least favorite things are there are not enough mountains (or really, any). We enjoy doing nature hikes and it can be challenging to see a beautiful view when you are 0 ft above sea level :). We also at times, find the lack of zoning confusing as we sometimes end up in places we didn’t expect.
Pricing:
- Our average meal costs $5, so for a donation of $50 you buy 10 meals for medical staff while support local businesses
Contact Info:
- Website: www.formedstaff.org
- Email: snacksformedstaff@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/snacksformedstaff/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SnacksforMed/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/SnacksforMed
Image Credit:
First photo of Coco Ma and Kathy Harcourt in front of Burger Chan credited to @MortezaSafataj
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