SAN ANTONIO – A local nonprofit is working to make sure they can still help the people they serve during the coronavirus pandemic.
Christian Assistance Ministry serves more than 200 people every day. They rely heavily on volunteers to fulfill their mission, but there’s a problem. Most of their volunteers are elderly, which is one of the populations at highest risk to contract the coronavirus.
Dawn White-Fosdick, president and CEO of CAM, said safety is their number one goal.
“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 said.
She said until health officials say they should close, they want to continue serving but need younger volunteers.
“We would love it if you could come down. You could help pass out the sack lunches. You could make sandwiches for us or help us to put together hygiene kits,” White-Fosdick said.
She said they are limiting clients who enter the building to 10 at a time, per recommendations put forth by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We want to remain open, even though we're trying to be safe and we understand what the CDC is recommending in our city,” White-Fosdick said.
The nonprofit has rented two hand-washing stations and a hand sanitizing station that will be located in their downtown parking lot.
“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,” White-Fosdick said
To learn how you can help or volunteer, click here.
COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new virus, stands for coronavirus disease 2019. The disease first appeared in late 2019 in Wuhan, China, but spread around the world in early 2020, causing the World Health Organization to declare a pandemic in March.
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