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Along with GRACE staff and volunteers, members of the Air Force National Guard help distribute over 10,000 pounds of fresh produce and dairy to 250 families on May 21, as part of the GRACE Grocery Giveaway Memorial Day food distribution.
At the beginning of March, Grapevine Relief and Community Exchange (GRACE) was fully operational, with several fundraising events on the horizon. Its client-choice food pantry was open, allowing clients to self-select groceries to fit their family’s needs, and the community clinic was up and running, serving patients who may not otherwise have access to health care.
These services were most affected in late March says Lara Sundell, the director of community engagement at GRACE. And as the pandemic continues, needs are rising. And GRACE is working to serve the community to the best of its ability.
An Influx Of Need
“So many people were furloughed, so many people were laid off and lost their jobs,” Lara says. “There’s a large population of the clients that we see that work in the service industry, whether that’s restaurants or hotels, and those were the first ones getting laid off."
Lara says pre-pandemic, many were already living paycheck to paycheck or had minimal savings.
“When COVID happened, they had no income at all,” she says. “Within a week’s time, our client base and the inquiries that we were receiving for assistance more than tripled.”
And as the need for assistance grew, unfortunately the donations started taking a dip.
“That’s when we recognized that the need was going to exceed what was coming in,” Lara says. “Fortunately we’ve been very blessed that a lot of people have been able to still support GRACE over the months, but what we are seeing trending already, especially going into summer, is that donations are already dipping. And that’s in-kind and monetary.”
“Hit or Miss” Pantry
In a pre-COVID-19 world, GRACE clients would receive vouchers for a dollar amount based on their family size, which would allow them to shop at GRACE’s self-select grocery store.
“We prefer that method because people can make their own decisions for them and their family and it still maintains that dignity of self-selection,” Lara says. “When COVID hit, obviously we went into lockdown, and we had to switch to an emergency food box.”
Because it wasn’t safe for people to shop in the store, GRACE pivoted its pantry model and began to distribute food boxes, filled with essential staples one might need for a week or two, to people who drove through.
Today, GRACE’s pantry is back to its traditional model. But with the ever-changing nature of the pandemic, that could change at any time.
“It’s just been hit-or-miss depending on what the policies are week-to-week.” Lara says. “Whether we do emergency food boxes or whether we are doing self-select.”
The Pivot to Telemedicine
GRACE also offers a community clinic, where doctors, healthcare professionals, nurses and translators volunteer their time on a weekly basis to serve people who may not have access to traditional healthcare.
On a normal basis, GRACE holds 50 to 60 community clinics a month. With these clinics, all types of doctors from primary care doctors to specialists like chiropractors, audiologists and podiatrists see GRACE’s patients on a regular basis.
“That’s primary medical care for people,” Lara says. “We have a huge population at the clinic that is pre-diabetic or diabetic, so making sure that we see them on a regular basis and that we’re tracking their insulin levels and making sure that they’re maintaining a healthy lifestyle, that’s kind of essential to keeping everyone healthy and out of the ER.”
When COVID-19 hit, GRACE immediately pivoted to a telemedicine setup for its community clinic.
“We’ve been able to continue assisting our patients that way,” Lara says.
Impacts Beyond Day-to-Day
COVID-19’s impacts can still be felt throughout the other services GRACE offers, including client services, Feed Our Kids and its back-to-school programs.
Typically Feed Our Kids, a summertime lunch program, has six sites around Grapevine which are geographically close to higher need areas. Volunteer groups will adopt a site and purchase and provide the food and activities for that location, Lara says.
“As you can imagine, there’s a lot of groups that have been unable to assist, especially when it comes to companies,” she says. “Not by anyone’s fault, it’s just, policies are in place and employees are not permitted to be in the office, much less be going to group activities.”
Several volunteers have been unable to keep their adopted site, but the need hasn’t decreased.
“That’s one program that’s going on right now where we can tell you that there’s still a need, even though some of the support has gone down.” Lara says.
Looking ahead to the fall, the uncertainty continues. Lara says they still don’t really know what GRACE's back-to-school programs will look like or how the school year will be structured.
“It’s hard for us to anticipate what the needs are going to be for back-to-school programs,” she says. “Normally, we serve 1,200 to 1,400 clothing packets during back-to-school at the fair. In addition to that, we serve several hundred kids with back-to-school supplies.”
Due to the uncertainty of what the fall could look like, Lara says GRACE is now asking for gift cards in $25 to $50 increments for GRACE to either purchase what they need or to give to a family.
The pandemic has also affected GRACE's fundraising events. An April “Designer Bags and Bingo” event, which was going to benefit the transitional housing program, was rescheduled for mid-July before ultimately being canceled.
“We’ve been very blessed to have people make decisions to change their contribution to a charitable donation rather than a sponsorship, but it also put us in gear to look forward to what our annual gala may look like,” Lara says.
The biggest fundraising event of the year, the GRACE Gala, may also need modifications or a new date.
“This is the time where we’re now starting to look at what the second half of the year may look like,” she says.
The Will to Keep Going
Despite all the ways pandemic affects GRACE, Lara says the support is still there.
“There’s just so many people that want to help, but they can’t do their normal service work, volunteering at locations or volunteering in groups,” Lara says. “The need is still there, it just looks different than it normally would. People were immediately looking for ways to help, stay involved. I mean, we had people coming to us with ideas we hadn’t even thought of, which was really, really nice to see.”
GRACE has had discussions about what the future could look like.
“We have had several conversations about what our programs may look like and how we may have to adjust some of our programs or operations,” Lara says. “...From a volunteer standpoint and our need standpoint, we’re having to figure out now how people can stay involved and still meet the needs but also stay socially distant.”
Despite all the challenges GRACE faces due to the pandemic, they’re ready to serve now more than ever.
“I would say this community...has been very supportive for families that need it,” Lara says. “COVID if anything has taught us all to literally take it very seriously when we say we’re in this together.”