Behind the Mask
At COL, “everything is about people,” and nothing has made that more abundantly clear than the effects of the current COVID-19 situation in Pittsburgh. From the shift to online learning with the help of our new website to discovering the constantly changing needs of the community, COL staff have stepped outside of their job descriptions and into a wide variety of roles. Let’s take a look “behind the mask” at what’s been going on in the past few months.
In times of uncertainty, our first instinct is often to recoil, to pull back into ourselves, and be reluctant to ask for help. We forget sometimes that community and empathy are exactly what we need. Community Outreach Coordinator Kiyomi Knox sees this firsthand in her work with COL. When the stay-at-home orders were first put into place, she and other staff began calling the families of our students to check in with them and gauge what the overall needs of the community seemed to be. The staff have been performing wellness checks and home visits around the community in order to connect people with necessary resources, manage those needs which have arisen due to the pandemic, and constantly reassess situations and make sure that COL is helping how and where they are needed most.
“We’re reaching more people than we’ve ever reached before,” says Kiyomi. She has personally spent time delivering diapers, wipes, and other baby products provided by Beverly’s Birthdays to families, as well as fulfilling a wide variety of needs and making connections with members of the community. Instead of hosting in-person workshops for families, COL has been working with multiple other organizations to run virtual wellness workshops such as support groups, mask-making lessons, and other outreach programs. “People can call us for anything,” she emphasized. “We might not always know all the answers, but we will find someone who knows the answer.”
“Becoming acquainted with the needs of every household has been very special, and this time has provided a unique opportunity to have that access,” says Neil Martin, who normally works as the Business and Compliance Manager for COL. Now, he spends a lot of his time going out on food deliveries and learning about what’s working and what could be improved. He and his coworkers are thankful for the ways in which community members have opened their hearts and homes to the offer of help. “It really allows us to change our programming to address those needs.”
Perhaps the biggest change in programming resulting from COVID-19 has been the introduction of daily meal deliveries. Before, people could come to COL to receive food on their own. However, transportation became a major concern when stay-at-home orders were established. Now, COL staff along with staff from Pittsburgh Community Kitchen and Praise Temple, in partnership with the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, make food deliveries directly to people’s homes. Through the Food Bank and Pittsburgh Public Schools, food is delivered to Center of Life and is then is packaged and distributed by the staff using COL’s vans. Each day, hundreds of meals are delivered to families around the local area.
This has been a huge undertaking, one that has been made possible by the hard work and commitment of these staff members. It’s also provided more of these opportunities to see firsthand where areas of possible need exist in people’s homes. “I think we’re learning more about what people need on the homefront right now,” says Pat Ohrman, Development Manager for COL. Though he has been able to continue with “business as usual” in many ways, writing grant proposals for the COL’s programming and preparing for COL’s summer programs, he has also had the chance to go out into the community and work directly with them through the food deliveries and at the office as well. Needless to say, there are still a ton of exciting things going on this summer!
Moving forward, the next steps out of “quarantine” won’t be much easier. As Pittsburgh begins to reopen and we find ourselves wanting to return to normal, it’s important to remember what we’ve learned about the community and how to listen to each other’s needs — in times of crisis and times of normalcy. “It’s really just filling in any gaps a family may have and doing it in a way that keeps them autonomous and accountable for their own improvement as well,” says Neil. COL will continue to support the community in all ways possible as we adjust to the ever-changing definition of “normal” in Hazelwood.
-Hannah McGinnis
