One Community Conversations: Tony Terzi, News Journalist Fox61 Connecticut

Tony Terzi, from Fox61, is one of the reporters striving to present the public with valuable and up-to-the-minute information. 

Keep reading to learn how Connecticut businesses are uplifting others and ways that you can help in this time of need. You can also tune in to the full conversation here

What are some of the Connecticut businesses doing to help in today’s situation?

Tony Terzi: We just left Science Park in New Haven, where there’s a great little company called Glucose Zone. And as you might expect, it’s geared toward people with diabetes. We’ve talked to their CEO and founder today, Charlie O’Connell, about what they’re doing for folks with diabetes. Now with gyms closed, people can’t go work out, but he said they’re still playing plenty of stuff you can do at home, even if you don’t have the weights. 

We’re also heading over to Guilford to talk to a company called Bio-Med. They’ve got almost 100 employees working around the clock trying to crank out as many ventilators as possible. We’ve heard all of the health officials from the US Surgeon General, through the Trump administration, on down to local doctors talking about the need to make sure we social distance and wash our hands to try to tamp out the community spread, because the more people that stay healthy, the fewer hospital beds we’re going to need for this. 

And hospitals are already stressed around the country. They’re going to need a ton more ventilators and this company, Bio-Med in Guilford, makes those ventilators. 

What’s your general day to day right now, as we face these unprecedented times?

Tony Terzi: Our mission every day is to make sure we present information that’s useful to our viewers without screaming fire in a crowded building. We want to keep people as calm as possible, because it’s human nature that you’re going to be stressed out.  We’re trying to tamp down the fear, but getting good, valuable information out there.

During all your research, has there been anything that has stood out, in ways that we can help everybody around us in our community?

Tony Terzi: If you can spare $10, $20, $50, go to your local restaurant that’s open and support your local restaurant with takeout, with delivery. 

Even if you don’t want to eat the food and you just want to make a donation to the restaurant, they can go out and feed some of our health care providers at local hospitals or doctors offices who are working overtime. 

The reason I say this is we did a story on Naples Pizza in Farmington. They are donating pizzas to the UConn Health Center in Farmington. 

So, if you’re out there, and you can spare a few bucks, even if it’s five bucks, even if you order a grinder or you order a small pizza, support our local businesses. And some of these businesses are going to turn around and support our health care providers.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with our audience that we can do or to get through this time? 

Tony Terzi: Yes. One other thing my photographer John Roll just reminded me of a story we did yesterday at the American Red Cross. The Red Cross is in desperate need. Nationwide, 4,500 blood drives have been canceled because of the coronavirus. Businesses and organizations are afraid to have 10, 20, 30 people in their buildings, understandably. 

Here’s what the Red Cross wants you to know if you’re a business or organization: they set up the beds and the screening in such a way that there is going to be social distancing. People are more than six feet apart and the health care providers are clean, sanitary, and wear gloves. 

Before you even get into a blood drive, whether it’s at the Red Cross offices in Farmington, or in your local neighborhood where there’s a blood drive, they take your temperature first. So you can’t get in until they take your temperature and give you hand sanitizer. So, give blood if you can, because there are lots of people out there that are in need.