Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh
Since we launched the COVID-19 Emergency Outreach Project on the Dasvandh Network, we met our goal of $30,000 in a matter of ten days! This has been our first project with Dasvandh and we did not know what to expect. We are so humbled and full of gratitude to the support you showered us with.
From the top 10 U.S. states with the highest COVID-19 positive cases, Khalsa Aid USA has teams serving in 9 of these states: NY, NJ, MA, PA, MI, CA, TX, FL, WA.
Since our last post 3 weeks ago on April 20 we have so much to share so please excuse the long message. We take pride in our seva and we want you to know where your funds are going. Here are some new updates in some of our regions:
CA: In the Bay Area alone we have delivered groceries and essentials to nearly 2,000 families, some as high as 200/week. Many of these families consisted of the elderly and/or low-income. In the Central Valley area the primary recipient of food deliveries were single mothers and families with babies. Central Valley provided meals for the homeless as requested. Our team partnered with local Sikh groups to consolidate our efforts together to be able to serve large populations of the California community.
NY: We are continuing to provide groceries to families, hot meals to 2 Brooklyn hospital's staff, and senior citizens in Queens. Additionally, we are now working with on-the-ground partners who have helped identify vulnerable groups that need food assistance, such as a East Bronx Jewish food pantry and two Queens based organizations helping feed undocumented families.
We donated 3,000 PPE essentials to Jamaica Hospital which is at the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. We donated 3,000 items consisting of PPE and essentials to AHRC - which will be shared among their 40 residential homes throughout NYC. AHRC serves families with members that have developmental disabilities. Many of these individuals canont social distance and their caregivers had contracted COVID-19.
NJ: In North Jersey our team provided healthy snacks at a COVID-19 testing site, pizza to EMS/Fire/Police departments, and are continuing to provide grocery deliveries upon request. Most recently our team donated food essentials to a Women's Shelter in Jersey City in honor of Mother's Day. In South Jersey, our team conducted a 5-day langar seva for both lunch and dinner each day for the ER and ICU departments at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, NJ. Earlier last month, the South Jersey team served hundreds of homeless Camden County residents by providing hot vegetarian meals downtown. We are continuing to work with women's groups throughout the state, especially pregnant mothers, homeless mothers, and victims of domestic abuse.
MA: We are working with social workers and partners in the Massachusetts COVID-19 Community Tracing Collaborative (CTC) which is a part of the Massachusetts Health Department who are vetting patients who either have COVID-19 or have a family member that has COVID-19 and cannot leave their home to get food. Many of these members do not speak English and are low-income. So far in Massachusettes we have provided groceries to over 100 families.
PA: Our primary requests for food came from Montgomery County, Philadelphia County, and Lehigh Valley. Many of these families are low-income and/or have lost their jobs. We worked with volunteers from all counties and were able to deliver to over 200 families.
TX: We focused on the county largest hit by COVID-19 which was the Dallas-Fort Worth area. We were able to make a few grocery deliveries in a state that Khalsa Aid has never operated in before.
MI: This is our newest state where we have launched operations to continue the COVID-19 emergency outreach. We are focusing on serving the South-east region of Michigan and the vulnerable communities that need us most. Over Mothers Day weekend, we delivered groceries to a nearby homeless shelter.
WI: Our Wisconsin team has served in one week alone nearly 150 families providing each with a standard family pack of food and essentials. Over Mothers Day weekend, hot vegetarian meals and 100 hygiene packs were provided in downtown Milwaukee. WI is working with vulnerable members of the Vietnamese community and veterans.
VA: Our Virginia team has started to receive the largest number of grocery requests from the refugee community (Afghanistan and Somalia) and Spanish speaking families. Our Virginia volunteers were so creative they translated their flyers into Spanish to accomodate vulnerable members whose first language is not English.
MD: To date we have served over 60 families in the state. We are focusing on grocery deliveries to vulnerable families. The majority of requests are from the Latino community and larger family sized households with babies. We have been delivering diapers as needed.
FL: We continue to focus on Orlando, Tampa, and Miami-Dade county for our grocery deliveries. Miami-Dade county has the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the entire state. Our team also had an opportunity to meet the Tampa mayor who was thankful for Khalsa Aid's efforts in assisting families with food assistance during the pandemic. So far the state has been able to serve over 60 families. The primary of these requests are coming from the Latino community.
We are still continuing our COVID-19 seva until our regions are fully out of lockdown mode and we start receiving less requests for resources. Until then we will remain dedicated to our duty and making sure your donated funds go towards all of the projects we have mentioned above and anything else related to COVID-19.
Please continue to share our efforts with your family and friends. We encourage you to come volunteer with us and help your communities during this crisis. Please continue to reshare/retweet our social media posts from:
Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @KhalsaAidUSA
