While we physically closed our Community Resource Center on March 18th, we remain open for business. We connect with our client families and individuals by phone and text, and “in person” through Zoom, FaceTime, and Google Duo.

• Early on, the Community Foundation of Snohomish County granted us nearly 
  $50,000 – not for us, but to pass on to help the most vulnerable families in our community. We’ve heard many difficult and disheartening stories and we’ve seen many tears of joy. If you know of a family or individual in need, please ask them to call us or apply for assistance on our website.

• In the three months since Stay-at-Home began, our staff has connected with our neighbors 858 times to provide financial assistance, help with Stimulus Checks, applications for unemployment, connection to the Food Bank, and more.

When we could no longer serve our Community Dinners, volunteerteams and friends like the League of Awesome Friends, The Churches at Maltby and Monroe, Peace Church Monroe, and many others rallied toprovide “Food Packs” for our hungry and homeless neighbors. Every Monday, Thursday, and Friday we deliver 20 – 30 Food Packs to homeless individuals and families.

This has been an especially difficult time for our kids with schools closed and being confined to home. Many of our volunteers are retired and have been with “their kids” for several years.They develop meaningful grandparent-like relationships and miss their kids. Some of our “senior” volunteers have learned to Facetime and Zoom so they can keep connected with their kids and even help them with homework!

Every week we have a family-wellness check-in with parents. If we are not able to contact a family by phone, Yesica Carmel, our Hispanic Family Navigator, visits the home to ensure all is well. Yesica connects families to our emergency financial assistance, the Food Bank, and other resources to help them through this difficult time.

We’re grateful the school district provided Chromebook laptops to every one of our kids. We do a weekly Kidz Club Zoom and YouTube lessons to stay connected. Volunteers often join – it’s a good time for everyone.

On Wednesday evenings, our Growing Together Director, Kara Dineen, Zooms with young moms and their children. They share their stories, stay-at-home challenges with young, active children, and grow together, encouraging each other through this difficult time.

With Snohomish County’s March 5th ban on gatherings of 10 or more individuals, our Sky Valley (Monroe) Food Bank went from a shopping style service to experiment with a drive-thru, prepacked box and bag pick up service.

In our weekly social service provider check-in Zoom with the City of Monroe, Cindy Chessie, the Food Bank’s Executive Director, told our group, “I’m thankful no one was run over in our parking lot – it was total chaos. I’d like to do a porch-delivery system but I just don’t have the staff or capacity to even think about it…”

The next day several of us got on a call with Cindy. We talked through the process of porch-delivery. Sarah Lunstrum, our Community Outreach Coordinator, and Kimberly Clem, from Cascade Church, put out the word to volunteers for vehicle driver / helper teams to deliver the food boxes. Phil Spirito, Monroe’s favorite Librarian, agreed to coordinated the volunteers and organize deliveries. One day later, 25 delivery teams were ready to go, including two teams of our Student Leaders. Two days later, Phil directed the caravan and 140 families received food delivered to their porch. 

When Cindy Chessie, the Food Bank Director, heard hungry families were calling Next Step for help with food, she graciously offered to add many of our families who were not previously part of the food bank’s work to the delivery list – 54 of “our” families with 97 children have not gone hungry because of Cindy and our community’s generosity.

In this time of the pandemic, we’re grateful for the careso many of you have demonstrated in many ways.

We miss working together with our more than 500 volunteers but we know many have been busy helping our community.

Every Thursday, Roger helps with our Food Pack outreach to our homeless neighbors – Roger cares by “giving people hope”. That truly is the best thing we can give – hope for our country and our world to emerge from this a better, more equitable and caring place for every single person.

Send us a picture, tell us how you’re caring for others in this crisis and we’ll post it on our Facebook page.

Message us on Facebook or email your picture to sarah@ttns.org.