Giorgio Armani Reaches Out to Support Italy’s Healthcare Providers

Over the weekend, designer Giorgio Armani took a full page ad in more than 60 newspapers in Italy, writing a letter to all of the healthcare providers strenuously fighting the coronavirus outbreak.  The list includes major dailies from Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica, La Stampa, Il Giornale and Il Sole 24 Ore to sports newspapers such as Tutto Sport and Corriere dello Sport (Armani owns the Olympia Milano basketball team). The list also includes regional newspapers such as the Gazzetta del Sud, La Sicilia, Corriere Adriatico, Messaggero Veneto, La Nuova Venezia, Il Tirreno and Brescia oggi, to name a few, from the north to the south of Italy.

“It is moving to see you engaged in your work with all the difficulties and the great efforts that by now all the world knows. And especially to see you cry,” writes the designer in the paid letter. “I think that this feeling is connected to my own desire to become a doctor when I was young and I was looking to forge my path.  “All of the Giorgio Armani company is tuned in to this reality and is close to all of you: from the stretcher bearer to the nurse, from the family doctor to all of the specialists in the sector. I am personally close to you,” he concluded signing off.

And Armani definitely knows how to put his money where his mouth is.  Earlier this month donated 1.25 million euros to a range of Italian hospitals and institutions involved in fighting the coronavirus spread in the country.  The Luigi Sacco and San Raffaele hospitals and the Istituto dei Tumori in Milan as well as the Istituto Lazzaro Spallanzani in Rome will benefit from the donation. The amount will additionally support the activities of Protezione Civile, the country’s Civil Protection.

Italy has been in lockdown since March 9 to contain the risks of contagion and prevent hospitals from collapsing under the demand of the increasing number of citizens with severe respiratory problems.

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Photo Credit:  DELBO ANDREA / Shutterstock.com