FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif. — COVID-19 is affecting everyone in one way or another. Instead of sitting this fight out, founder Jeanine Rountree of nonprofit Operation Be Kind wants to be part of the solution.

“Whether you’re Asian, Hispanic or Italian, Spanish. It doesn’t discriminate,” said Rountree.

The coronavirus is contagious, but it’s not the only thing that’s infectious. Kindness also has the power to affect people.

“With the pandemic happening right now, we all feel a pull to help the community,” said Rountree.

She founded Operation Be Kind in 2017 after she spent an afternoon feeding homeless people in the Santa Ana Courthouse Courtyard.

That experience changed her perspective on her community. Within hours, Rountree invited family and close friends to her house so they can create “kind bags” to help people in need.

Three years later, Operation Be Kind has been a nonprofit that continues to engage with the community in helping homeless people, cancer patients, and underprivileged families.

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About a week ago, Rountree’s longtime friend, Denise Winn, reached out to her.

“It just happened over night. Pretty much Sunday, I was hounding her. Get your Facebook up, get your web developer, make a webpage, and I’m going to be focusing on the products,” said Denise Winn, of Winn Expo.

Operation Be Kind and Winn raised money together while Winn also worked around the clock to get companies overseas to sell them the masks.

“From the time we started buying masks, the prices have jumped up excruciatingly. These masks were about $2.25 plus shipping. Now the same mask is going for $3.90,” said Winn.

The prices weren’t the only thing that made securing these masks difficult.

“Some of the companies in China got orders from the Chinese government to make masks for them only and they can’t sell it to consumers, so we’re going through trading companies that had stocked supplies they haven’t sold yet,” said Winn.

Before this current purchase of masks were made, Winn says they purchased 60,000 masks that were stolen from a warehouse. Despite the bad experience, Winn, her contacts, and Operation Be Kind didn’t give up.

The first 10,000 masks arrived this week and were dispersed within a day to prevent health care workers from reusing masks. Eight-hundred of the N95 masks went to Fountain Valley Regional Hospital where their kindness didn’t go unnoticed by emergency medicine physician, Dr. Timothy Korber.

“All of these things are being used. Thank you,” said Dr. Korber.

While Rountree and Winn are the ones delivering these masks, they say the kindness they’ve received to make this all possible came from many people. Everyone involved believes kindness will help us get through this unprecedented time together.

“It was a great response from the community. I know we all want to be part of the solution to flatten the curve, so everyone contributing $20, $5 helped quite a bit,” said Rountree.

Children’s Hospital of Orange County, two Kaiser Medical Centers, UCLA Medical Center, and a hospital in Whittier also received donations from this shipment.

To help Operation Be Kind, purchase more masks to help even more health care workers on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic, you can visit their PayPal page.

For more information about Operation Be Kind, visit their website and Facebook page.