Just in time for Mother’s Day, one of our favorite mother-daughter duos — Beyoncé and her ride-or-die mamma Tina Knowles Lawson — are teaming up on a very special collaboration to support communities in Houston with testing and supplies during the coronavirus pandemic.
In collaboration with BeyGOOD, Beyoncé’s philanthropic initiative, the #IDIDMYPART Mobile Testing Relief Campaign will “bring awareness to the daily testing administered by United Memorial Medical Center, initiated by Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee” over Mother’s Day weekend — and will reportedly help out the effort by providing “1,000 test kits, face masks, gloves, essential vitamins and household supplies to citizens of Houston. The test is free and administered under safe conditions as participants will never have to exit their vehicles.”
“The virus is wreaking havoc on the Black community so we need a movement to prioritize our health,” Knowles Lawson said in a press release about the initiative. “…We are all in this together. But we have to look at what is happening in our Black and Brown communities and how they are being decimated by COVID-19. It is critical that we stay vigilant with social distancing, wearing a mask, and most of all getting tested. If you don’t get tested then you don’t know if you are a carrier of the virus. Being asymptomatic is how you infect your entire household and those around you, the very people you love. We have got to go to these free testing facilities and find out our status.”
In statements about why she felt compelled to act in Houston, Lawson cited recent CDC reports — noting that, as of late April, that 33.7 percent of COVID patients were African American (despite African Americans comprising 13 percent of US population) and 33 percent of all fatalities are African Americans.
“Testing is crucial because it helps find hot spots and saves lives,” Congresswoman Jackson-Lee added in a statement commending the initiative. “Texas has a very low COVID-19 test rate, second lowest in the nation. This is why the commitment by Ms. Tina Knowles Lawson and BeyGOOD is so significant in helping Houstonians get out and get tested.”
To keep momentum going, Knowles Lawson challenged actor, director and philanthropist Tyler Perry to set up his own #IDIDMYPART campaign in Atlanta, Georgia (before challenging another celeb to take up the work in another city).
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