Editor’s note: This profile is one of a series of stories about Staten Island women who have gone above and beyond during the coronavirus pandemic. They are women who have been critical in keeping essential functions operating as the health crisis grips our community, our city and our nation. The Staten Island Advance/SILive.com is proud to dedicate its annual Women of Achievement program, established in 1964 and celebrated every year since, to these local heroes; we are calling it Staten Island Women of Achievement 2020 – The Front Line. Congratulations to this 2020 Woman of Achievement: Kamillah Hanks.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Rising and rallying to meet the needs of her community is nothing new for civic activist Kamillah Hanks, who lives in Stapleton.
Following Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Hanks and Staten Island’s YOUTHBuild program, of which she pioneered and is the executive director, worked to provide food, clothing, resources and rescue efforts to the people of Staten Island.
YOUTHBuild is a national and international non-profit that works with low-income youth aged 16 to 24 to provide pathways to education and careers through on-the-job construction experience in their community.
Hanks wears many civic and activist hats -- she founded and is the CEO and president of the Historic Tappen Park Community Partnership and is treasurer of the Minority Women in Business Association of Staten Island (MWBA). She volunteers at Snug Harbor’s Heritage Farm on Saturdays to distribute fresh produce to those in need, and works with other local non-profits and community-based organizations on a variety of local projects.
Working in the non-profit world, Hanks is used to doing more with less in less-than-ideal situations, but the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, coupled with a mandatory city and state lockdown, was something nobody expected -- and no one was prepared.
“You have to pause, pivot, and you have to produce. And that’s exactly what we did,” Hanks told the Advance/SILive.com.
She recalled that, on March 14, when she learned that two Stapleton businesses -- Assembyl 3D Printing, run by Staten Islander Mike Perina, and 5050 Skatepark, owned by Ed Pollio -- were making face shields for first responders, something clicked.
PAUSE
This was the “pause” in what turned out to be a master plan that helped thousands of Staten Islanders.
Like all ventures, money was needed for materials and the production of the face shields. It took a few days, but Hanks said she realized that instead of getting investors to fund the face shield project, she could turn it into a training program for the young adults in the YOUTHBuild program and utilize a Work Progress Program (WPP) grant.
A second grant from the Department of Labor (DOL), which Hanks already had secured prior to the pandemic, was utilized for the project as well. The department gave the green light to reallocate the funding for the project.
PIVOT
The ability to turn the project from a financial venture for investors into a training opportunity through grant utilization was the “pivot” in Hanks' plan.
Because of Hanks’ idea, incredible things happened: 5050 Skatepark would have its rent paid during an uncertain financial time in the middle of a pandemic; Assembyl 3D was being paid to train the YOUTHBuild students; the students were paid for their work at a time when thousands of people were losing their jobs; and life-saving face shields were being created.
Hanks called it a “perfect storm.”
A Staten Island YOUTHBuild participant works on a face shield at 5050 Skatepark in Stapleton. (Courtesy Michael Perina)Staten Island Advance
PRODUCE
Finally, the “produce” portion of the plan. After a few days of being trained on how to operate the machinery and make the face shields, the assembly line was up and running by March 20 -- less than one week after Hanks' “ah-ha” moment.
“It reminded me of Hurricane Sandy, and how Staten Island just steps in,” Hanks said. “These kids are just an amazing group of young people who did extraordinary things in extraordinary circumstances.”
“I feel that as a woman of color and having an organization and these young people, we made sure these kids had a job for three months when everybody was getting laid off. I feel grateful for having the idea and putting it together, but those kids didn’t even get a graduation. This would be an opportunity for me to shout them out properly. They’re the ones who didn’t get anything. It was just one of those things where the neighborhood of Stapleton just came together,” she said.
Working inside the skatepark allowed the students to remain socially distant and created an assembly line.
“The YOUTHBuild students worked day and night, cranking out 300 face shields a day. These kids, under those circumstances and conditions, not knowing or caring if they were going to get sick. We were all trying to be as careful as we could,” she said.
A serendipitous moment soon came in the form of a phone call from the Uniformed Firefighters Association’s (UFA) Staten Island Trustee Eric Bischoff.
He was checking in to see how Hanks was doing; it proved to be the perfect opportunity.
“I asked if he needed face shields for the Fire Department, and couldn’t believe it because they were in dire need,” she recalled.
By April 1, every firefighter at every firehouse on Staten Island had a face shield that was produced by Staten Islanders inside the 8,000-square-foot 5050 Skatepark.
Uniformed Firefighters Association’s Staten Island Trustee Eric Bischoff organized the face shield donations to all the Staten Island firehouses. (Courtesy Michael Perina)Staten Island Advance
IMPORTANCE OF NON-PROFITS
Getting the firefighters face shields helped to show the importance of non-profits, she said.
“The real problem was the government saying we need face shields and PPE that were CDC-approved, and the firefighters were just saying we just want something so that we can live. There was no time,” she said, referring to government recommendations for protective equipment approved the by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“Sometimes government can be a little obtuse and can’t really change on the dime, and that’s the importance of non-profits. We’re people who are able to do things on the ground and do them quickly,” she explained.
In fact, so many face shields were made they were also distributed to nurses and residents in nursing homes. Anybody who needed a face shield had to fill out a request form, and within an hour they had one.
“We went back to the basics and we just became a village, and we helped each other," she recalled. “It was one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done in my life."
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