Social Distance Does Not Mean Social Disconnection!
Share Your Skills/Build Your Community During COVID
- JOIN OUR UMASS DARTMOUTH SOUTHCOAST ECO-CHALLENGE TEAM! The Earth Day Ecochallenge is a 22-day fun, online environmental and social engagement program that includes actions mindful of our current situation. For every completed action, you earn points and create impact. Your points contribute to our team's total points, and your impact contributes to our collective impact. GO TO THE LINK HERE: https://bit.ly/3cJ0JjF Or find our UMASSD team at earthday.ecochallenge.org
- org. Take the UMass Dartmouth SouthCoast 60 pledge – https://www.volunteersouthcoast.org/event/detail/?event_id=60402 Complete 60 hours of service in a year and get loads of benefits! Online volunteering counts ;)
- Youth Service America 1(YSA) reminds us …We’re all in this together, so be a helper. Let’s all do our part to contribute to the common good, so that when this crisis is over, we’re proud of how we came together to keep our young people, our communities, and our democracies thriving. Visit http://ysa.org/covid/ for a list of 10 excellent community-building ideas and resources!!!
- ORG – “A digital platform for powering real world impact” has a powerful list of connections for online volunteering--- This resource is invaluable if you want to make a real difference from the comfort of your home! There are so many more online volunteering opportunities than you may think! https://www.dosomething.org/us/articles/9-places-to-volunteer-online-and-make-a-real-impact ... and they’re also offering a $1,000 scholarship opportunity for sharing your tips on how you are practicing social distancing. https://www.dosomething.org/us/campaigns/covid-19-social-distancing
- Support the Greater New Bedford Medical Reserve Corps which is creating a list of volunteers to call isolated elderly residents for 10 minutes each day. Please email gnballies@gmail.com if you’re able to help. Alternatively, set off a “phone tree!” Call 3-5 people to check in on them, and tell them to do the same! Set off cascades of goodwill!
- Blood Donation As more people get sick, there will be less and less blood donation. Supply will not meet demand. Thus it is more important than ever for healthy people to donate blood. https://www.redcrossblood.org/donate-blood/dlp/coronavirus--covid-19--and-blood-donation.html There are also other ways in which you can volunteer for the Red Cross https://www.redcross.org/volunteer/volunteer-opportunities/deliver-blood.html
- Do you sew? Want to help make facemasks for strained health care workers? https://www.deaconess.com/How-to-make-a-Face-Mask #millionmasks
- Want to Make a Monetary Donation? Here are places to donate money:
https://disasterphilanthropy.org/cdp-fund/cdp-covid-19-response-fund/
https://www.gofundme.com/f/covid19-relief-fund
https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/coronavirus-relief-fund/
https://charity.org/emergencies/coronavirus-outbreak
- Stay home, take care of your family, check in on the vulnerable and lonely, donate food and money to local organizations in your community (Google organizations in your region that may need help, particularly those serving the poor/elderly/children!), do your best to maintain a sense of social community and solidarity, check out the links above for many novel ideas for how to help out (particularly YSA and DoSomething), fight misinformation and racist scapegoating wherever you see it, take care of your schoolwork, and of course take care of yourself!
Stay healthy and stay connected!
From your friends at the Leduc Center for Civic Engagement
