Student Government Association (SGA) and Student Affairs have joined forces to provide up to two free COVID-19 rapid tests per month to undergraduate students in need of testing who cannot afford to pay the fees out-of-pocket.

Leading the initiative is SGA President Philip Goodrich (’22) and Student Health Director Jacqueline Deats.

Goodrich, who is a History and Integrated Educational Studies major and a minor in Political Science says SGA has been thinking of pursuing something like this for some time now. “Once it was brought up as a potential initiative, we were able to finalize the details and bring it to fruition in a fairly quick manner, about a week or so,” he said.

SGA saw a need to provide students with instant COVID-19 test results in an inexpensive way. Although the Student Health Center would never turn someone away because they could not pay for a rapid test, the testing price of the $40 out of pocket charge might discourage certain students from getting tested. “SGA wants to ensure the safety [of] Chapman students and the broader campus community, and by providing this opportunity free of charge, we feel we are helping to do just that.”

SGA allocated $15,000 and the university matched the contribution with its own $15,000. This program will be available to students until the allocated funds run out. This dollar amount equates to 750 rapid tests. Goodrich is hoping the 750 tests can last into the Spring semester.

“​The motivating factor of starting this program was to allow students to get a rapid test when they feel it is necessary, regardless of whether they are feeling ill or have symptoms. The Student Health Center has been great when it comes to testing students who have developed symptoms, thus, this program is aimed at providing free tests to students under all other circumstances, such as travel, exposure, etc.,” said Goodrich.

For more information, students can call either (714) 628-6596 (for students feeling ill or who know they’ve been exposed) or (714) 744-7877 (for all others). For coronavirus campus updates, you can go to cusafelyback@chapman.edu.