The Jim and Tabitha Furyk Foundation is swinging into action to help providers at Baptist Health get the personal protective equipment they need to help treat patients with the coronavirus.
The foundation is donating $100,000 to the Baptist Health Foundation COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund for PPEs. The donation also will help increase bed capacity as the number of patients who have contracted the COVID-19 virus mounts in North Florida.
The Furyks also are encouraging people to donate through the foundation’s Facebook page.
“We felt like this is what is really needed right now, because this might get worse before it gets better,” said Ponte Vedra Beach resident Tabitha Furyk, the wife of 17-time PGA Tour winner and 2010 FedEx Cup champion Jim Furyk. “Everybody is worried about staying safe, and it’s easy for us and most people because all we have to do is stay home. But the doctors and nurses out there who are helping people with the virus don’t have that option. If we can give them a safe work environment, every patient has a better chance of survival.”
Baptist Health has long been one of the major recipients of the Furyk foundation donations.
In addition to the donation to Baptist Health, the Furyk Foundation is stepping up its efforts in other areas:
• The Furyk Foundation is working with Urban Mining, a Jacksonville company that refurbishes and recycles electronic equipment, to provide computers to children in Title 1 schools who haven’t been able to participate in online classes.
• The cancellation of the PGA Tour’s RBC Heritage in Hilton Head Island, S.C., next week meant the cancellation of one of the foundation’s “Operation Showers,” for military mothers-to-be.
• More than 5,000 packages of beef jerky donated by Kingmade Jerky have been shipped to seven of the schools served by the Foundation’s “Blessings in a Backpack” program to ensure children receive healthy food during the weekends when they’re away from school. The donation will supplement the snack packs for lunches and dinners that have been provided by Duval County Schools during the pandemic.
The foundation began sending out “Showers in a Box,” gift packages to the mothers who would have attended, and Jim and Tabitha Furyk sent video messages to those mothers to let them know the packages would be arriving.
The Operation Shower in advance of The Players Championship took place on March 8.
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