The businessman donated 20,000 masks to every ward in the city.
In a grand gesture of generosity and humanitarianism, formal mayoral candidate Dr. Willie Wilson has donated one million face masks to the alderman for all 50 wards in the City of Chicago.
“Senior citizens, residents living in underserved communities, the needy all need masks to protect themselves from COVID-19 and to comply with Governor Pritzker’s order,” said Dr. Wilson in a press release.
“I am providing 20,000 face masks to each Alderman in Chicago. I am asking them to ensure that seniors and the most vulnerable citizens in their wards receive a mask.”
Wilson ran for mayor of Chicago in 2015 with a campaign that he funded out of pocket. He ran again in 2019, but was ultimately nudged out before the run-off election between Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Toni Preckwinkle.
The businessman has a rag-to-riches story, where he began as a sharecropper, getting an education, then working his way up the ladder at McDonald’s until he eventually owned and sold five of their franchises.
Wilson also produced an Emmy-award-winning gospel program called Singsation on WGN.
Today, he owns Omar Medical Supplies Inc., which he founded in 1997. His award-winning company supplies schools, governmental institutions, corporations, and restaurants chains with gloves, protective clothing, and safety supplies.
“Since the COVID-19 pandemic Dr. Wilson has donated more than 1 million masks to Mount Sinai Hospital, Jackson Park Hospital, the Chicago Transit Authority, Cook County Jail, Chicago Firefighters, Fraternal Order of Police, 75 senior citizen homes, the Westside NAACP, and 22 community organizations,” read the press release.
Additionally, “Dr. Wilson has also personally donated $1 million to people that have lost their jobs do to the COVID-19 pandemic and another $1 million to 1000, churches.”
Just yesterday, in addition to donating 10,000 face masks to the staff and detainees of Cook County Jail, Wilson paid the bail of 12 Detainees convicted of non-violent misdemeanors.
“Leaders must step up and demonstrate leadership in times of crises,” he said in a press release. “Today I am leading as I have always done by putting up my own resources to ensure that these 12 individuals do not contract COVID-19 from the jail.”
[Featured image from Wilson’s Facebook account]