Winston Salem, North Carolina – Greater Gift announces donations to local agencies committed to diversity in honor of participants in the COVID-19 Community Research Partnership Study. Greater Gift is donating $2,000 to The Twenty to encourage volunteers to complete daily symptom surveys. Greater Gift donated $2,000 to The Twenty when 3 million entries were received. Executive Director Lilly Skok Bunch stated, “Greater Gift is passionate about engaging underrepresented populations in clinical research and building trustworthiness to populations who traditionally and understandably are reluctant to participate in clinical research. We recognize the significant impact that the Twenty is having on supporting testing and prevention efforts in the Black community during the COVID pandemic and are proud to support their outreach.”
The COVID-19 Community Research Partnership is working to gather data through a multi-site study sponsored by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and led by Wake Forest Baptist Health. The study encourages volunteers to report daily exposures, symptoms, risk-reduction behaviors such as wearing a mask, and whether they have received a flu or COVID-19 vaccine. Over 22,000 clinical trial volunteers are completing daily online questionnaires to track possible exposures and symptoms.
The Twenty, founded 5 years ago, is a group of committed black business-persons working through 20 committees to close the wealth gap in East Winston-Salem and Forsyth County. By building collaborations within the community, The Twenty’s Healthcare and Wellness Committee has worked to increase understanding of COVID-19 testing and vaccine engagement. Greater Gift’s Executive Director, Lilly Skok Bunch, said, “As the Community Research Partnership Study aims to better understand COVID-19, Greater Gift wants to honor organizations like The Twenty to increase understanding of COVID-19 and build trust within Black communities.”
About Greater Gift (www.greaterglft.org): Greater Gift is a non-profit organization, founded in 2010, with a mission to increase awareness of clinical research, especially among underrepresented communities, to improve global health. Greater Gift builds bridges with underrepresented communities to engage them in research, ensure equal representation in clinical research and to increase access to research as an option for medical care. Since its founding, Greater Gift has honored 130,000 clinical trial volunteers by making donations in their honor of vaccines and meals to children in need.
About The Twenty (www.thetwentyws.org) The Twenty is made up of twenty committees who act as working think tanks with a mission of initiating and continuing participation in systemic work to alleviate the racial wealth gap in Forsyth County. Their founding belief is in a sacred nobility inherent to each human being; but an understanding that equal access to social, political, and economic institutions which are critical to individual self-determination are not accessible and often denied. The Twenty has a core focus in housing, entrepreneurship, and business development.