Students build air purifiers for wildfire smoke victims
The DIY air purifier is the latest project of the Common Humanity Collective, a Bay Area mutual aid organization which was launched in March 2020, near the start of the COVID-19 crisis, by UC Berkeley graduate student Abrar Abidi and campus research assistant Yvonne Hao to help make life safer for those most at risk in the pandemic.
This fall, as wildfire season continues, nearly 70 volunteers show up every other Saturday at an Emeryville parking lot on Doyle Street to attach MERV-13 filters to basic 20-by-20-inch, three-speed box fans with PVC foam weather stripping, hot glue and large, elastic silicone bands. So far, the collective has given 970 air purifiers to local low-income residents whose neighborhoods have both high air quality index (AQI) readings and high asthma rates.
“More than anything we’ve done in the past, the DIY purifier project has blown us away,” said Abidi, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in molecular and cell biology. “We’ve been doing this every other week since July. There’s just so much momentum. People show up, get to know each other, self-organize into different stations, and joyfully assemble between 120 and 200 purifiers in a few hours. It’s astonishing to see, and it unfolds so organically.” CONT'D...
For full story, visit: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/10/28/...
Video by Roxanne Makasdjian and Alan Toth
Volunteer air purifier building event courtesy Common Humanity Collective
Wildfire footage courtesy CAL FIRE
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