Clean Air Club in Chicago provides air purifiers to artists, touring musicians
CHICAGO (CBS) — A Chicago volunteer group has already begun cleaning spaces used for indoor concerts and events, one venue at a time.
The Clean Air Club is a grassroots organization with a lending library full of air purifiers available for rent, prepped and ready for another year of use.
Grime builds from filtering hundreds of concerts, art fairs, and comedy shows, and volunteers are getting into every nook and cranny to clean them.
"We are looking at a HEPA filter that has been used for a year. Debris has been caught in the filter instead of our lungs, said Emily Dupree.
Dupree is the founder of the Clean Air Club.
"Clean Air Club provides free air purifiers to Chicago artists and touring musicians so that their shows and events are COVID safer," she said.
Dupree founded the group after her partner caught COVID at a concert, even after wearing a mask.
"I was sort of dealing with that disappointment and realized that a lot of people who did continue to care about COVID were talking about masking, but I hadn't heard anybody talking about air purification," Dupree said.
Although the world has reopened, COVID-19 is still a public health threat, according to the CDC, and our air quality hasn't gotten any better.
"The reality is that air purification is an extremely effective strategy for making our indoor spaces safer from the spread of COVID," Dupree said.
She decided to transform that concern into action.
"I just decided to kind of plug in a way that felt genuine to me and new for the community. I started a fundraiser, and Clean Air Club was born," she said.
Their 12 purifiers have traveled across the city and even on international tours, making indoor art spaces safer, cleaner, and more accessible.
"For the first time in four years, people who are immunocompromised or who have long COVID and can't risk another infection are finally able to join an arts community again," Dupree said.
She's also gained a community as well.
"Actually, getting to do something that put me in connection with likeminded people was a source of community and solidarity that I don't even think I was aware that I needed so much," Dupree said.
Now other cities are taking note from Chicago, with over a dozen new Clean Air Clubs popping up all over the country.
"Within the span of a year, we went from zero to one to 29, and there are three more about to launch. So, we'll be at 32 soon," she said.
For those interested in volunteering with Clean Air Club or renting an air purifier, visit cleanairclub.org.
