The Daniel R. Sayre Memorial Foundation has received a donation of more than 50,000 surgical masks for first responders and frontline healthcare workers from Marc Benioff of Salesforce, Inc.

Laura Mallery Sayre, who founded the Daniel R. Sayre Memorial Foundation with her husband Frank in memory of their son Daniel, contacted Hawaii County Fire Department for help.  Battalion Chiefs Bill Bergin and Michael Grace along with several firefights met Laura at the Kona International Airport on Wednesday afternoon to assist  in transporting the boxes.

Ms. Sayre said the masks—54,000 in all—are being distributed to firefighters and ocean safety officers, Kona Community Hospital, Ali’i Health, Ali’i Surgery Center, Queens North Hawaii Hospital, Kohala Hospital and Hope Services, which administers the island’s homeless shelters.   She said masks are also going to local dentists, so they might resume seeing patients.

Sayre said masks were also offered to Hilo Medical Center and West Hawaii Community Health Center but they had no need of additional masks.

Benioff is the founder, chairman and CEO of Salesforce, an enterprise cloud computing company based in San Francisco.  Benioff also owns a home on the Big Island and was married on the island.  Numerous stories about Benioff have talked about his love for Hawaii.   In 2018, Benioff and his wife Lynn purchased a 200-year-old carving of the war god Ku at an auctions at Christie’s in Paris for $7 million and donated it to the Bishop Museum.  Benioff said in an interview he had only learned of the item being auctioned the day before, when Danny Akaka called him and asked him to help return it to the people of Hawaii.