It seems like weekly, maybe even daily, some new announcement comes out relative to COVID-19 guidelines. How we should protect each other; how we should protect ourselves; new mandates; new guidelines; new facts and even new rumors. It’s a lot to take in and follow. Sometimes overwhelming. Changes and updates are the norm.
One thing that has remained the same is that people are still hungry. We all still need to eat to survive. That’s why we are involved in the programs I have mentioned over the last few weeks. These are important. However, people cannot always come to the food and this pandemic has, frankly, made it harder to get the food to certain people. Elderly, medically fragile or shut-ins who relied upon others or programs to bring food to them may have found that the resources they depend upon are no longer available. I know that several of the church pantries in the area that have delivered in the past are no longer doing so. Understandably so since many of the volunteers they depend upon are part of the vulnerable population and need to exercise caution. So what can we do about it?
Over the last couple of months I have been part of a conversation, led by the Oregon Food Bank, to explore an interesting partnership with an organization called Ride Connection. Ride Connection has been around for decades and typically provides rides to those who meet their criteria to things like appointments, shopping or even church. All of these things are usually scheduled well in advance giving Ride Connection enough time to make the needed arrangements.
With the virus, their ridership is down and they are looking for ways to utilize their now available capacity. One of the challenges is that when someone calls in need of food, telling them it will be delivered in a week is not acceptable. To their credit, Ride Connection agrees and is now looking into how they can reduce that to two days. They are hoping to be ready to go by mid-August and Holy Trinity, along with Care To Share, will be part of the pilot testing. I will update once the program begins.
In the meantime the Knights from Holy Trinity are looking to see if they can help us get the delivery effort started by filling in for Ride Connection until they are ready. If all goes well, delivery service should become a permanent offering for us.