March 19 Zoom meeting of the #ForColumbia2020 Exec Team

March 22: An Update on the COVID-19 Impact on #ForColumbia2020

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The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps. (Proverbs 16:9)

By Shelly Mayer
Director, ForColumbia 2020

As the COVID-19 (Novel Coronavirus) has spread across our country and entered our own community, it has become abundantly clear that our efforts to coordinate a large-scale volunteer effort to love and serve our city with a one-day, large-scale event are not going to be implemented.

More to the point, we believe a great deal of the work we had planned to accomplish is no longer the most effective way to serve our neighbors.

The ForColumbia Executive Team has therefore decided that our focus needs to shift – significantly – from a one-day event to focusing on possibilities to serve our community in more of an ongoing way, at least for the duration of this crisis.

REGISTER: ForColumbia COVID-19 Service Teams

So what will our ForColumbia efforts look like?

To be honest, we don’t know yet what that looks like, but we’re involved in a lot of conversations with others in our city who are trying to work through the same questions.

“What can I do?”

A lot of people are organizing a lot of things right now. We don’t want to duplicate efforts. Rather, we want to partner with the citywide efforts that are already being organized. We also have our eye out for gaps in serving; we want to be a resource to families who are unable to get help from some of these citywide resources.

How can I partner with ForColumbia this year?

  • Sign up on our new, simplified registration.
    • Cooperating in this way will help us capture who is willing to serve in an ongoing way whenever we do identify areas of need. Volunteers who register in this way will be notified of community needs and invited to participate in them.
  • Continue to pray.
    • Please pray for the medical personnel in our city who are already seeing COVID-19 in our hospitals and are putting themselves at risk for the good of others. Pray for their protection, for wisdom to know how to do their jobs with excellence, and for rest. Many doctors and nurses are working longer hours, and are having trouble sleeping.
  • Sign up to be part of our Prayer Team.
    • We will continue to update that team with specific prayer requests as they come to us.
  • Continue to follow health protocols and social distancing.
  • Continue to check in on the neighbors near you.

We can all do our small part to let others know we care.