NBA players such as Chris Paul and Joel Embiid, as well as entertainers such as Jennifer Lopez and Olivia Wilde, are among the supporters of #FirstRespondersFirst, a philanthropic initiative to serve health care workers’ needs from child care and hotel rooms to food and personal protective equipment.
Creative Artists Agency announced the effort on March 23, as a partnership through the CAA Foundation, Arianna Huffington’s Thrive Global and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
“So, it happened over a phone call,” said Natalie Tran, CAA Foundation executive director. “Through a conversation that happened — Arianna was speaking to the president of CAA, Richard Lovett, about this initiative that she has been working on and we very quickly realized there was a way for us to partner together.”
Huffington already had connected with Harvard when she called Lovett. He, in turn, called Tran and Michelle Kydd Lee, CAA’s chief innovation officer, Judee Ann Williams, CAA social impact co-head, as well as others who work on the agency’s philanthropic efforts. The initiative was announced a week after the phone call.
Multiple companies and brands, including Cisco, Constellation Brands, Dutch Bros. Coffee, Experian, IHG Hotels & Resorts, Johnson & Johnson, Listerine, Marriott International and Mattel have contributed to the effort.
The initiative gave CAA entertainment and athlete clients, such as Embiid (see story, right), and brand clients, such as Constellation Brands’ Modelo beer, a place to provide support for health care workers.
The NBA player and the beer brand contributed $500,000 each to the effort. “What we are seeing is the desire to build a coalition, which is the beauty of something like #FirstRespondersFirst during such an uncertain time,” Williams said.
#FirstRespondersFirst has partnered with Americares and Direct Relief to provide PPE. But it is also partnering with World Central Kitchen to provide nourishing food to front line workers and with Bright Horizons to provide child care for doctors and nurses.
IHG donated 50 million rewards club points and a dedicated VIP reservation service for first responders at its hotels.
Additionally, Marriott International is providing hotel rooms including at The Renaissance New York Times Square and The Algonquin Hotel Times Square for doctors and nurses.
Williams noted that there is a need for hotel rooms for both local and out-of-state health care workers. “They can’t go home; they have to be quarantined from their families,” she said. “They are calling on doctors to fly in from other cities and states to these areas that are being hit hardest so they are being displaced from their homes.”
Tran noted that the effort is trying to focus on everything health care workers need. “It started off as a way to provide health and safety resources to first responders, first and foremost, and then as we have grown over the past several weeks has been an incredible coalition of nonprofit partners and corporate partners joining in on this.”
