DCC19 Reflection: One Year Later
A year ago, the world as we knew it stopped in it’s tracks. This is our story, highlighting the folks we met along the way.
March 31st, 2021
As the one year mark hits, we at DCC19 reflect upon the incredible impact and connections we’ve made to support those disproportionally affected by the pandemic.
“There are people feeling like they can’t do anything, right now.. how can we channel this into something more productive?’
I know there’s brilliant minds out there who want to help.”
A year ago to date, people were told to stay home and avoid social interactions- to be prepared to lockdown. Folks were losing their jobs, China and Italy’s death tolls were rising and two things were for certain- people were afraid and unprepared for the months to come.
When we started Design to Combat COVID19, we wanted to help our fellow creatives who were losing their jobs because of furloughs and layoffs, help our communities in getting the right healthcare protection for their healthcare workers and families, and especially help those who had been disproportionally affected and failed by government aid because of systemic racism.
We sent out a call and overnight 200 of you joined, in a week 1000 and to date we are over 2000 strong globally. When we sent out the call, we would have never imagined the swiftness of our groups coming together to solve for these very real design and systemic problems.
The first few months could only be described as a whirlwind, hundreds of us coming together to build something larger than life, immediately impacting lives only hours after coming together.
One of the first efforts that steamrolled out of DCC19 was Masks for Docs, a grassroots organization that delivered over 100,000 pieces of personal protective equipment to medical care workers worldwide.
When healthcare workers were ill-supplied protection due to supply chains not keeping up with PPE demand, our Mask For Docs volunteers met doctors and nurses after hours to go around the systems and provide the protection they needed to serve our communities. The impact and work these volunteers had done, still humbles me to this day.
A key takeaway we’ve learned is there is power in combining forces.
We met empowering organizations throughout this experience who are doing incredible humanitarian work worldwide.
Distribute Aid, who worked with our designers to complete a various amount of aid work like PPE distribution Refugee care has been huge in helping us make connections and create impact.
LA Tech4 Good and DCC19 combined efforts to assist with their Digital For All tech campaign, addressing digital inclusion and the digital divide which became even more prominent due to the pandemic.
Of course, there is The Design Vanguard, who highlighted our efforts early on and helped to brainstorm ideas on what we can do as a design community to create impact while supporting our creatives.
And additionally, Fight Pandemics who we collaborated with to share resources and effort.
We are so thankful for meeting and working with these orgs and others.
Globally & virtually we made a difference.
We met volunteers from almost every continent on this planet. The IKEA team out in Sweden, Designers based in Australia, Engineers in Norway and more. It was clear, borders meant nothing to this community in terms of coming together to help our fellow humans.
One of the first ever recorded Covid Testing location initiatives was started by this group, lead by Naomi Tirronen, Branden Byers and Jess H. Through their efforts they were able to document over 500 testing locations and eventually combined efforts with government led initiatives after being able to get caught up to speed.
Another one of these designers, Fer Sagastume ( and creator of our newest logo 🎉) is a Guatemalan creative based in CDMX who created designs of pilot COVID surveillance testing strategies to help safely reopen essential organizations. She paired with COVID Response Advisors and also helped to create designs for their site, and helped to create impact.
However, we’re also here to support all social causes.
Holly S. paired up with Kristi Yamaguchi's "Always Dream Foundation" to provide beautiful web design work to ensure children from low‑income families have access to high‑quality books and can’t thank Holly enough for her contributions.
And if it weren’t for these key contributors, our impact would have been a much different story.
Melanie Ensign- CEO at security + privacy communications advisory firm @discernibleinc provided us best in the industry comms support during our most trying days, and continues to provide guidance with our marketing needs. We wouldn’t have been able to do such powerful work without your guidance Melanie. Thank you.
Branden Byers, Founder of cKeys stepped up during our peak weeks asking how he can help streamline our organization. Branden became our Community and Operations Lead helping to guide our thousands of volunteers to the right impacting opportunities- if it wasn’t for Branden, our org surely wouldn’t have succeeded in the ways that it did.
Charm Bitanga came to our call when we needed support for our event and marketing space. As a seasoned creative events contributor, she gave DCC19 the support it needed to bond our communities globally.
And of course, our volunteers.
This post is for you, for all of the amazing people we met along this journey, who selflessly dedicated your time, resources and passion to supporting people you have never met in order to care for your fellow communities.
You have changed my life forever, and I am humbled to continue to do meaningful work by your side. Thank you.
“Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
Rachel Smith I March 31st, 2021
