A Mt. Lebanon college student and three of his friends have a noble goal: To raise enough money to buy and distribute 100,000 disposable masks by June 1 to those who need them.

As of Tuesday, the Covid Response Network had distributed 38,000 masks that it was able to get from a distributor in China, network founder and president Ezra Gershanok said.

Before the covid-19 pandemic hit, Gershanok, 21, was studying at Penn State’s University Park campus, a junior in economics.

Then classes ended and he was sent home to Mt. Lebanon. He was restless and felt powerless about the pandemic.

At the end of March, Gershanok found out he could help get masks to people who need them, because of Chinese business contacts that he and his friend and business partner, Jacob Halbert, have made.

“We are well-positioned to do this because we had this existing relationship with a producer in China,” Gershanok said.

In 2018, he and Halbert, 20, invented the Keyper: a smartphone attachment that holds a college ID and room key. Halbert, of Sarasota, Fla., was a Penn State student at the time; he is now a junior at the University of Michigan.

Keyper is produced by a Chinese company.

As the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States, they learned their contacts in China could ship them non-medical grade, 3-ply disposable masks in bulk.

The pair formed the Covid Response Network with two more partners: Brendan Bernicker, 23, a Penn State graduate who’s studying at Yale Law School, and Tulane University student Rayna Recht, 20, of Upper St. Clair.

Gershanok, Halbert and Recht have known each other since they were kids who attended the Emma Kaufmann Camp in West Virginia, operated by the Jewish Community Center of Pittsburgh.

“Jacob and I have been living in the same cabin for 10 years,” Gershanok joked. When Halbert was at Penn State, the two were roommates at a Schreyer Honors College dormitory, where they met Bernicker.

Each member of the group brings a different skill set that helped to get the Covid Response Network in place quickly:

Bernicker’s legal expertise was used to get the network registered as a nonprofit in New Jersey and to lay the groundwork for ultimately attaining federal 501(c)(3) status, Gershanok said.

Halbert has designed the network’s website. Gershanok has the contact with the mask supplier in China. Recht is a whiz at using social media to promote a cause.

“I think we all came together because it was such a real problem,” Gershanok said.

They order the masks and deliver them personally.

Money is raised using social media and GoFundMe drives. Their efforts were given an initial boost by Pittsburgh JCC Board Chair William Goodman, who personally underwrote the cost of 10,000 masks.

View this post on Instagram

We are so excited to launch our 48 hour $1,000 match fundraiser!!! We are so fortunate to have a donor that is willing to match up to $1,000 by tomorrow night!! HELP US REACH OUR GOAL!!! Link in bio!!!

A post shared by The COVID Response Network (@covidresponsenetwork) on Apr 21, 2020 at 4:55am PDT

“It’s been really an awesome experience, so fast paced, this whole situation is so minute-by-minute. It came together really quickly,” Recht said.

They’re working to supply community groups, nonprofits and others with the masks, including the Allegheny County Jail, the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, Jewish Family and Community Services, Planned Parenthood and other groups across the region.

Delivering the masks has shown Gershanok and Recht places in the Pittsburgh area they hadn’t known about that are already in place to serve people in need, Recht said.

“We could tell we are really making a difference,” she said. Before they started, “it felt uncomfortable to sit back and do nothing.”

“I’m amazed by how much we’ve been able to accomplish as a team,” Halbert said. “It’s been just over two weeks and we’ve been able to move tens of thousands of masks all across the country. It’s unbelievable. … This experience has really reminded me how many people are suffering in so many ways.”

A $1 donation provides about two masks.

Through 8 a.m. Thursday, all donations will be matched by an anonymous donor, Gershanok said.

Being part of the network has given him hope.

“I am not powerless over this,” he said. “There’s actually something tangible I can do.”

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