Dr. Karen Tsai: How the Co-founder of Donate PPE Raised $150,000 for Covid-19

2 min readApr 8, 2021

This week’s episode of Talking Taiwan features part two of my interview with Dr. Karen Tsai about her work with Donate PPE, a nonprofit that she has co-founded and that has raised over $150,000 to date. This is part two of my interview with her after speaking with her previously in episode 120 about how she spearheaded the creation of Monster Dance, a children’s book created to address the needs of children dealing with a world changed by COVID-19.

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· How and why Dr. Tsai started the nonprofit organization Donate PPE with Deyu Kong

· How the Donate PPE team is entirely Asian American

· The work of Donate PPE and how it has delivered PPE to different low income, communities in need

· The various companies and organizations that Donate PPE has worked with to get donations distributed

· How Donate PPE has made donations internationally

· How Donate PPE has adjusted as the situation with the pandemic has changed over time

· How Donate PPE’s initially targeted hospitals and health care workers but later expanded to nursing homes, free clinics, schools, underprivileged communities, Navajo Nations, rural areas in the Midwest, vaccination sites

· Asian hate crime advocacy organizations

· The different distribution challenges that Donate PPE has had to deal with

· How Donate PPE dealt with the distribution challenges presented by the partnership with Norwex to Distribute a Million Masks to Healthcare Workers and how Citizens of Humanity assisted

· How Donate PPE got its nonprofit 501(c)(3) status during the pandemic by May 2020

· How Dr. Tsai has worked full-time as a physician while running Donate PPE

· How the Donate PPE website has changed over time

· What’s in the future for Donate PPE once COVID-19 gets more under control

Dr. Karen Tsai: How the Co-founder of Donate PPE Raised $150,000 for Covid-19

Written by Felicia Lin