I’m the Managing Broker of Signature Homes Realty but I’m also a registered nurse, and as a member of the community and local business owner I was very concerned about the historical gap in health care and disparity among the Black and brown and homeless members of our community.

Having an insight into airborne diseases and virology, I sensed a strong need to help and educate the most vulnerable on the importance of wearing masks to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 during its most infectious period. I was able to muster other clinical minds and professionals to create a strategy and public health campaign for the underserved and often neglected.

In our efforts to help, we volunteered and delivered masks to the most underserved people in the Evanston community. We focused on the homeless, Latinx, and Black community by providing free modern masks from the American Lung Association along with education on the importance of mask compliance.

We performed street-level social work and community outreach this summer at the highest points of the pandemic and when Evanston’s community required it the most.

The health volunteers were predominately people of color, helping people of color. We used a Mexican wrestling mask theme to get our message across: that minority medical heroes wear masks and so do Mexican wrestling heroes, so it’s heroic of you too. Anyone who wears a mask is a superhero!

It was an honor to be a part of the campaign and to culturally advise on the process. As a team, we successfully passed out 500 masks, and at the end of the day we masked up. If we helped one life or provided a smile we did our job. 

Michael Marin,
Signature Homes Realty