Dear Friends in the Fight,
Mighty Well is a mission-based company, and our team has faced a rollercoaster of emotions from heartache and outrage over the senseless deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and Breonna Taylor, and all the other victims of senseless racism and police actions. We have hope that this will unite us in finally creating lasting change. Our founding team believes that our society must make racial justice a reality and end police violence against Black communities. In support of Black Lives Matter, Maria del Mar, Yousef, and I participated in the protests in Boston and Newport this weekend. We also contributed to Black Lives Matter: Minneapolis, the Massachusetts Bail Fund, and Muhsen, an NYC based umbrella organization serving children and adults with any intellectual, mental, or physical disability.
We want to foster a more just community for our Friends in the Fight. We are listening. We are learning. We are committed to doing more. Most importantly, we are committed to continuing to be a company that has brave conversations about justice, including discussions about racism, ableism, disability rights, and gender parity. Highlighting Black Friends in the Fight has been a part of our diversity and inclusion mission from day one, but we can do more.
In the coming weeks, we will be resharing and featuring new stories of our Black Friends in the Fight. In our first paid partnership with Eloquest Healthcare Inc., Mighty Well featured the Diabetic Diva, Isabelle Edwards: Meet Isabelle Edwards- Type 2 Diabetes & Gastroperisis Warrior. She shared her perspective of living with multiple chronic illnesses and medical devices. Please look out for our Instagram Live next week with Keisha Greaves, founder of Girls Chronically Rock, to discuss what the medical and adaptive wear industries can do today and tomorrow to include Black voices.
For many of our Friends in the Fight – particularly those who are immunocompromised or disabled – it is not safe to protest. Fortunately, there is a wide range of ways to get involved! We have released our Top 5 Tips to Protest While ImmunoCompromised/Disabled on social media and our blog. Please share it with your friends and network. Moving forward, we will use our platforms to highlight the disparities that Black Americans with chronic illnesses face and provide educational content for our audience.
Participating in the protests this weekend was eye-opening – even from an appropriate social distance while wearing prototypes of our Mighty Well Mask™, our new antimicrobial finished face mask. We are launching our Mighty Well Mask™ at the beginning of July and will be donating our first 500 Mighty Well Masks™ to Black Lives Matter approved organizations.
While we are proud of the diversity and inclusion on our team, advisory board, and on our cap-table, we know we can do better to combat systemic racism and unconscious bias in the healthcare industry, the disability community, and in our everyday lives. We would love to hear from you if you have any feedback or ideas on how we can do better: [email protected].
Mightier Together,
Emily Levy, Yousef Al-Humaidhi, and Maria del Mar Gomez-Viyella