We continue to Serve
It’s because of you, we continue to serve. A few weeks ago, the WFED Cabinet surveyed our membership about utilizing reserve grant funding to support our community in this time of need. We are proud to say that the response was overwhelmingly in favor of this support. Over 90% of responding members supported Cabinet and Committee directed rapid response grants to organizations serving the western slope of El Dorado County to address the immediate needs of vulnerable populations and communities impacted by COVID-19. Thank you for trusting and empowering WFED leadership to provide this much needed funding. Your Cabinet worked closely with the Grants Committee to carry out an expedited grant process.
It is our honor to announce that $24,600 ($4,100 each) in immediate need funding has been awarded to the following agencies:
El Dorado County Office of Education
Homeless Outreach
This grass roots food pantry was started as a direct response to the school's closure due to COVID-19. Prior to the summer food program, which provides lunches and breakfasts through the schools, being extended to meet the current needs, it was quickly recognized that children being home from school would put an immediate strain on household budgets for those families who rely on the school's nutrition programs.
Once the school's feeding programs began, it was apparent that many families were still experiencing an increase in food insecurity; some due to lack of transportation to the distribution points, others due to job loss and loss of income, still others for increased numbers of people being in the home all day due to the shelter in place orders.
While the person managing the effort is the Homeless Youth Coordinator for the El Dorado County Office of Education, it was also soon recognized that this need would reach beyond just the homeless youth and to many other families with socio-economic challenges and vulnerability to food insecurity.
Referrals for food are received from social services and school district staff as the means of prioritizing services and ensuring that the donations and funds expended are specifically targeted to serve the county's most vulnerable youth and their families.
To date, within the month since this effort began, 200 individuals have been supplied with shelf-stable groceries through personal donations of food and finances. No family within this month has been served more than once as donations are being dispersed as quickly as they are received.
As we begin to approach the first wave of time when families who have lost their jobs, don't receive their monthly income, we expect to see our numbers increase exponentially. This grant will provide the opportunity to continue to serve those families already identified, as well as to add new families identified.
At the current expenditure of approximately $5 per person, per delivery to supplement the food donations received ($15 for a family of 3), $4100 will allow us to serve the original 200 individuals in addition to another 50, for three more months. This number will of course vacillate based on the need and the continuation of additional donations.
All person's receiving the donations are referred to the Homeless Youth Coordinator through Health and Human Services, public school personnel, or non-profit organizations who serve children.
Green Valley Church has been generous in providing an empty portable to serve as our food pantry for the duration of the school closure.
The School Resource Officers, employed by the Sheriff's Department, have been invaluable in providing the deliveries of goods to the families.
New Morning Youth and Family Services
Since El Dorado County’s Shelter in Place Order has been in effect due to COVID-19, New Morning Youth & Family Services has seen another public health crisis emerge. As proven by sociologist Marianne Hester (abusive-relationships specialist at Bristol University), it is common for incidents of domestic violence to go up whenever families spend more time together (ie. during holiday breaks, summer vacations, etc.).
Needless to say, with local families on lockdown and all of the schools closed, our agency has been on the front lines responding to increased community reports from local youth experiencing domestic abuse, neglect, and a wide array of other crisis-related issues.
Just this past weekend we had two teenagers show up on our doorstep seeking services because they had run away from home. One young woman showed up on Saturday night, having hitchhiked from Pollock Pines alone, stating that she couldn't stand being stuck in the house with her sexually and physically abusive uncle during quarantine for one more day. She had told her parents, the ones hosting her uncle, and they had done nothing. The other teen who showed up on Sunday, had run away from home after getting into an argument with her parents that had escalated to the point of physical assault on multiple occasions. Apparently this client's father had begun "losing his temper" in this way regularly since his COVID lay-off and general family quarantine had begun.
Luckily we have a strong staff team keeping the shelter open, a social-worker doing remote case management and family-reunification sessions for these clients, and a team of therapists to provide emotional and mental-health support while navigating these difficult times.
While this has always been the work of New Morning, our present circumstances require us to work 10X harder right now. We anticipate serving an additional 30 youth through shelter and crisis counseling.
The Upper Room Dining Hall
The guests that visit the Upper Room Dining Hall are primarily members of our community that fall below the poverty line. This includes seniors on a fixed income, low income families, single parents, and people suffering from physical and behavioral health disabilities. All are considered vulnerable populations and suffer with food insecurity. As the impacts from COVID-19 push more people out of work, we have experienced significant increases in the number of people who count on us for the only source of nutrition that many of them will receive. Prior to COVID-19, the Upper Room Dining Hall served an average of 150 meals/day at a cost of $3.35 per meal. Since the middle of March, we have seen a 67% increase in meals served. We now serve over 7,500 meals a month, 3,000 more each month as a direct result of the impacts that COVID-19 has had on our community. All funds received from this grant will help us to continue to serve the increase in guests resulting from COVID-19.
El Dorado County Food Bank
Funds will be used to provide nutrition throughout all of El Dorado County. The Food Bank is currently serving approximately 16,000 families each month at this time.
The Center for Violence Free Relationships
The Center for Violence-Free Relationships provides a wide range of services to victims of domestic and sexual assault. These include counseling, referral to services, and instrumental support (emergency housing in our safe house, housing/transportation assistance, and basic necessities such as food, clothing, personal hygiene and household items) among others to those escaping violence. Shelter-in-place policies and the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the frequency and intensity of domestic violence globally, made it more difficult to effectively respond to the needs of this vulnerable population. Locally, reduced revenue and additional expenses due to the pandemic has affected our ability to provide instrumental support.
We are requesting a grant of $4100 to fund instrumental support for specific clients/families (at least eight) with acute needs, and to defray a portion of our increased expenses at our safe house. This aid would help in offset losses revenue to The Center due to canceled or delay fundraising events. We have had to cancel or reschedule fund raising events (e.g., one canceled event brought in approximately $40,000 last year). We have incurred additional operational costs associated with attempts to keep staff safe as we continue to serve our clients (annually, about 1200, 600 new each year, perhaps more given the present conditions). We have had increased costs at our 18 bed shelter, which provided nearly 1,000 bed-nights last quarter for women and their children. We implemented additional cleaning protocols, and provided additional meals to residents, spending $165 for hand sanitizers and dispensers, $30 in extra cleaning supplies, and an additional $435 in groceries just last month. We expect the increase in food costs to remain as long as the shelter-in-policy is lifted.
Although the grant may be used to defray some of our increased costs at our shelter, it will be prioritized for specific individuals/families in dire need. A quick canvas of our case managers yielded several clients in the community facing hardship. We have survivors in recovery that have been laid off and are at risk of losing housing. One elder client was working in a school and lost her job due to COVID-19. Her rent is $900 and is struggling to come up with money. One client was laid off from a $2000/month job in similar circumstances. Another had a job cleaning house, but had to stop working because of the lack of affordable childcare for her young school-aged children. Last month, she spent about $200 more in food and had another $100 more in bills due to sheltering-in-place. Another survivor was looking forward to start a new job at a preschool, where she had planned on making $450/month. Our case managers continue the process of checking in with their clients to assess emerging needs. Where possible, we provide interim support to prevent a bad situation from getting worse, and grants such as that from the Women’s Fund El Dorado would help tremendously.
Military Family Support Group
Military Family Support Group (MFSG) and their El Dorado Veteran Resources (EDVR) office honors and empowers El Dorado County Veterans and Military Families during critical times of need. MFSG and EDVR serve as a resource and referral office, the co-point of entry for Veterans seeking assistance in the county. We assist in expenses and aid that are otherwise not funded by Veterans Affairs and other local Military/Veteran-focused nonprofits. Some specific examples have included free pantry items & prepared meals, providing transportation to bi-weekly dialysis appointments, emergency housing assistance (hotel rooms) funding automotive repairs that would allow a Veteran to continue working, and paying a Veteran’s electricity bill or rent when faced with a loss of wages due to the PG&E outages. Most of what we do has such a big impact, and we would love to continue that success, because our community cares about Veterans who have served our country.
Amid the COVID19 health & economic emergency, El Dorado County Veterans have been further strained with respect to housing and food security. Furthermore, this emergency has pushed once financially stable Veteran families who have been past donors to support our work to seek out assistance for food, utilities and housing. We have already received requests for assistance due to COVID19 income loss for rent, groceries, and essential bills totaling in the thousands of dollars within the past two weeks. To safely continue serving the needs of our clients, MFSG is in the process of setting up a curbside/parking lot food distribution at the Veterans Memorial Building for Veterans in need every Wednesday afternoon. MFSG will purchase most of the items for distribution from our partner, the Placer Food Bank. These funds from WFED, will allow us to offer and screen clients to approve 6 families with up to $500 in rent assistance ($3,000 total) and 5 families with up to $100 utility/essential bill assistance ($500 total), and 12 families with up to $50 in transportation, grocery or other assistance ($600 total). Applications and screening for eligibility will be done via outreach at our curbside food assistance program as well as our primary source of referrals which come from the Veteran Service Officers at the El Dorado County Department of Veterans Affairs office.
Our Site-Visit Committee reached out to all six agencies for an update on funding. Below you will find the link to these reports.
These additional awards will not affect our 2020 grant cycle or future membership awards.
It is because of each of you- all 420 of you - for believing in the greater good, for putting community needs above self, and for understanding the power of collective giving and action, that we continue to be leaders in community philanthropy. Stand tall and take pride in knowing that your contributions directly assisted in making a difference during this pandemic.
