Reliance Medical Centers: Community Service in Times of Need

Reliance Medical Centers has introduced numerous initiatives to support the senior’s community during the last two months, several of which have gained Reliance an enviable reputation for being one of the most generous and caring organizations in Polk County. Two, initiatives in particular, really stand out as prime examples.

Donating Personal Safety Kits to Seniors in Polk County
With safety equipment and hand sanitizer extremely hard to come by, Reliance Medical Centers made contact with suppliers to find out who could deliver bulk supplies. Not for their direct benefit or for the benefit of staff, who had ample supply, but for the seniors of Polk County.

“Everyone has been finding it hard to get supplies of sanitizer and face masks. However, with seniors being the most vulnerable in our society, we wanted to do all we could to find sources of these items and give them to any senior that needs them in Polk County.” Said Roberto Martinez, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Reliance Medical Centers. He went on to explain, “It was not easy. We made call after call to different suppliers, many of whom just did not have the stocks available to make bulk deliveries in the numbers we wanted. Eventually, we found a separate supplier for face masks and one for sanitizer, and we ordered big.”

Since the items arrived, staff members have continuously worked in rotation to make up the kits. Each kit includes three masks, three pairs of gloves, and a bottle of hand sanitizer. As the first batch of kits came off the human production line, social media posts explaining that personal safety kits were available to all seniors in Polk County got published. The response has been amazing! Since the announcement, more than two hundred seniors a day have been requesting kits, and the Reliance Transportation Department Team has been working tirelessly to deliver them.

Donating Transportation Services for Food Distribution
It was clear that when the stay-at-home order took effect, many seniors were unable to go out to buy food; some did not even have the means to do so due to the late arrival of stimulus checks. ‘Saving our Seniors,’ a charity located in Tampa, wanted to help by delivering food supplies to seniors in Polk County but did not have the transportation required. As soon as Reliance Medical Center’s discovered this, Reliance’s transportation service immediately stepped up and teamed up with Saving our Seniors to resolve this logistical shortfall.

Since then, Reliance’s transportation team has been collecting frozen, ready-made meal supplies from Tampa and delivering them to seniors across Polk County as well as helping with deliveries in Tampa. The meals provided are not just off the shelf frozen meals; they are balanced meals specially prepared to meet the nutrition needs of seniors in these difficult times, and each household is provided enough meals for a full week until the next delivery.

In addition to food, some of the deliveries have included durable medical equipment; things like wheelchairs, crutches, and nebulizers; all manner of health items that seniors have been unable to gain access to during the stay-at-home order.

It’s clear that the very essence of Reliance Medical Centers stems from a desire to support all seniors right across the community. It’s part of the organization’s DNA, put there by the co-founders, Dr. Carlos Romero and Roberto Martinez, who continually look for ways to improve the health and well-being of older adults.

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