School of Nursing and School of Medicine: December 2021

UConn’s first boxathon was sponsored by the Petit Family Foundation’s Haley’s Hope and Michaela’s Miracle $10,000 grant. UConn Graduate and Undergraduate students from the Schools of Nursing, Medicine, Dentistry, and CT Area Health Education Center (CTAHEC) created 100 portable air purifiers. These units were deployed to the West Hartford Elementary Cafeterias, where many schools have no HVAC and limited ventilation. It was inspired by Dr. Kimberly Prather’s student-build of 200 purifiers at UC San Diego.

School of Engineering: February 2022

This initiative was led by Dr. Faye Assanah, this course is being done as a second semester “Introduction to Engineering” freshman level students incorporated DIY air purifiers into their curriculum as the class project, spanning all four University of Connecticut regional Campuses. In addition, the university is pleased to have these 8 purifiers donated to the Hartford Public Library, and 94 were donated to the local Coventry Public Schools in this national time of need as a result of COVID-19.