Inspiritus COVID-19 Update: Planning & Response

Dear Friends,

Inspiritus has been closely monitoring the evolving Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Our Clinical Team Manager is working across our programs to ensure sanitary and preventative measures are in place. She has been working in partnership with all program directors to accomplish these precautionary steps. Here are the immediate priorities we're working on across all four of our program areas:

DISASTER RELIEF:
We are ramping up and adjusting our Hunger Relief services through our Food Bank site in Nashville to support growing pandemic needs. Meanwhile, our Tornado Disaster Response teams which have led over 4,200 volunteers in service to the Nashville and Cookeville communities over the last two weeks are temporarily returning to their homes to weather the pandemic crisis at hand. Our Nashville office will continue to receive donations and supplies for our Tornado response and recovery work, please donate for a 50% match from Thrivent Financial here. Our relief efforts will resume again as soon as possible. 

REFUGEE AND IMMIGRANT SERVICES:
Rapid changes are occurring in this program daily. Yesterday, our teams were preparing to receive and resettle 30 refugees in March-April, totaling 30% of our annual caseload in a two month period. Yesterday, we were informed that all refugee resettlement into the US has been temporarily halted due to pandemic risks to these families. While we are evaluating how to maintain staff capacity to endure this gap in service funding, our staff are already receiving increased requests for assistance from refugees living in Clarkston. These individuals and families have lost their incomes as a result of the economic downtown precipitated by this pandemic. We expect these calls to increase daily and are currently seeking to raise funds to help keep 50 of our families stably housed this month, with financial needs of $800 per family for rent.

CHILDREN & FAMILY SERVICES:
Our staff is adapting and adjusting as they continue to provide vital services to help protect foster children in our care, particularly those with existing health challenges and may be at higher risk of infection. Case managers are staying in close contact with our foster families to identify needs that arise as a result of the coronavirus and to connect them to the additional resources.  As these resources are squeezed due to increased demand, we will need to lean on our own resources to fill gaps.

DISABILITY HOST HOMES:
Because most of the adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities we support in host homes have at least one, and often many, medical diagnoses that place them at higher risk for becoming infected, our staff are adapting to support them and their host home support companions during this crisis.  They are paying particular attention to the need for economic, food and other assistance that might not be otherwise required.   

We serve those who are most vulnerable in this national crisis. Their cries for financial assistance are starting to pour in, at the same time that we are daily seeing reduced volunteers and funds due to the coronavirus pandemic.

We're asking each of our supporters to prayerfully consider joining with us as a "monthly sustainer" during the uncertain months ahead. Your monthly donation will directly go to help those who are losing jobs, facing homelessness, enduring life-threatening medical challenges, and spiraling into crisis. Your monthly gift will sustain foster parents caring for medically fragile children during this crisis. You will help caregivers with highly-vulnerable, disabled adults living in their homes with 24-hour medical care needs. You will help hard working fathers and mothers who are losing their jobs and facing homelessness in Clarkston, Atlanta, and Nashville.

This is a critical time. Today, your gift will do more than help our teams guide local families in crisis on the path from surviving to thriving. For the time being, your gift will help them survive. Please donate below, and select a monthly donation option to be a Sustaining Partner with us now.