Texas Nonprofit Needs Volunteers to Help The Homeless
A nonprofit in San Antonio, Texas that serves the homeless population is being majorly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and they’re looking for some assistance to ensure that their important work isn’t impacted as they work to serve the hungry and the homeless.
Christian Assistance Ministry, in San Antonio, Texas is a major part of the community. The nonprofit serves over 200 people every single day, and they do incredible work helping some of the most vulnerable people and ensuring that they are able to eat, but they face a unique problem due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Firstly, many of Christian Assistance Ministry important works are carried out through volunteers. Many of those volunteers are elderly and therefore deemed high-risk for COVID-19. This has left the organization which provides essential services to so many in a bit of a situation, and it could leave the recipients of those services in a similar situation if not addressed.
Since seniors are at high risk of infection from COVID-19 though, the ministry is focused on maintaining safety for all of its volunteers.
Executive Director of Christian Assistance Ministry, Dawn White-Fosdick, said this about prioritizing the safety of CAM’s volunteer base:
“We did send a notice out to all of our senior volunteers and told them to listen to the directions of our mayor and our president, to listen to their doctors. If they have any concerns, they should not come down here.”
White-Fosdick also made it a point to say that the organization needed younger volunteers to be able to stay open and urged them to come out and volunteer. Some of the things these volunteers could do to participate would be packing lunches, making sandwiches or putting together hygiene kits for CAM to distribute to people who are very much in need.
The organization is going to remain open as long as the CDC allows it to but they are taking important precautions to limit transmission. CAM is only allowing ten people in the building at a time, hand washing is being prioritized, and they are strictly following all regulations put forward by the CDC.
CAM is also working to ensure that the people they serve also stay safer during this outbreak and have rented two handwashing stations, and a hand sanitizing station that they are placing in their downtown parking lot.
White-Fosdick says that this is to ensure that the very people that CAM is staying open for can also make sure they have access to these stations:
“We know that some of the people we serve are homeless and they need a place they can go to each day to get water, to get food, to go to the restroom. And we are trying to still be that place, but we need volunteers to help us do that.”
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