Yesterday I spoke with Nathan McKenzie, a member of the Mansion maintenance staff about his idea to help save lives and ease the burdens on the aides.

He messaged me on Friday to ask if we could help him purchase an urgently needed Disinfecting Fogger, a highly regarded Disinfection System created for institutions like the Mansion to keep the residents safe.

As we all know, the coronavirus is killing hundreds of older people in nursing homes and eldercare facilities in New York State and throughout the country. At the Mansion, the overworked aides are disinfecting the building – a sprawling old mansion – three times a day.

I think Nathan has the right idea to keep the virus out of the Mansion.

Every surface in this building – every table, chair, window, or other surfaces – is being hand-wiped with Lysol or some other disinfectant in the morning, before lunch and in the evening.

The disinfectant fogger Nathan wants to get – he has done his homework and researched this carefully – is a handheld spray that can cover a room in seconds. That is the safest way to disinfect a facility like the Mansion, and that would also free up the aides to care for the residents, their primary function.

I so appreciate Nathan’s concern about the residents. He knows every inch of that winding, two-story building. And he cares.

He tells me this fogger would make everybody at the Mansion – aides, residents, one day visitors – so much safer. The coronavirus is devastating elder care homes throughout the state.  So far, the Mansion has lost no one to this disease.

The aides could disinfect a room or a hallway or bedroom in seconds.

The aides are exhausted now. They spend much of their day wiping and spraying.

The home foggers cost a few hundred dollars, the institutional fogger  Nathan wants needs to be bigger and more potent for the Mansion – costs $899. The refills and disinfectants will cost at least $1,000 more. It will do in seconds what it takes the aides hours to do. And it will do it much better.

The Mansion will contribute to this project also, as much as they can. They don’t have a lot of extra cash; it is a Medicaid facility.

Nathan said he felt the need for this is so urgent he is putting up $100 of his own money. I asked him to wait and give us a chance; I know what he gets paid.

I’m putting up $400 of my money (more if necessary to do this quickly), and I’m asking for support from the Army Of Good and anyone else out there.

This could save a lot of lives and lighten the load of the exhausted staff in a meaningful way.

I’ll post again about this later this morning; I wanted to put the word out there now. I would love to call Nathan this weekend and tell him to get his fogger.

If you want to help, you can do so via Paypal, [email protected], or by check, Jon Katz, Fogger, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. And thanks. I’m going to try and raise $2,500 to $3,000 for this system and the refills and cases of disinfectant.

If I can get $1,500 soon, we can get the fogger and some refills and take it from there. Thanks, this feels very important to me.