When the Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida opens Camp Deep Pond in Hilliard next summer, there will be a new first aid clinic on the site.
It’s in a shipping container, and it was donated to the nonprofit by JWB Real Estate Capital, the company behind the Ashley Street Container Lofts in the Cathedral District of Downtown.
JWB President Alex Sifakis said that when the COVID-19 pandemic began in March, authorities predicted there would be a critical shortage of hospital rooms for people suffering from the coronavirus.
Working with guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, ShayCore built a portable, self-contained intensive care unit where a COVID-19 patient could be quarantined and treated.
“When hospital capacity didn’t become an issue, we decided to donate it to the Boys & Girls Clubs because we knew they needed a first aid facility,” Sifakis said.
Paul Martinez, president and CEO of the Boys & Girls Club, said about 2,500 children attend the 64-acre day camp at Deep Pond each year beginning in June.
It’s an outdoor recreational experience and for some of the participants, their first.
“A lot of the kids have never been in a canoe or gone fishing or roasted a marshmallow,” Martinez said.
The clinic in a container “is like a little hospital room,” Martinez said. Having it will help counselors who are certified in first aid better serve campers with minor injuries.
It’s more than a little hospital room, said David Monk, chief operating officer of ShayCore.
Working with JWB, HRH Architects Inc. and following guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, ShayCore built a portable, self-contained intensive care unit where a COVID-19 patient could be quarantined and treated.
The plan was to turn them out quickly to serve as modular emergency medical facilities that could easily be transported and set up where needed.
“We wanted to find out how quickly the medical containers could be built. The design was changing while were building, but we got it done in 96 hours,” Monk said.
JWB provided the materials and equipment; ShayCore donated the labor for the prototype.
Components installed in the container include the ability to connect to oxygen and compressed air, environmental control, waste disposal and an independent source of electricity.
