Adapting Ourselves in the Time of COVID-19

   HEART of Saguache/KV is a health equity non-profit organization committed to creating community engagement and reducing poverty in the Saguache and KV areas. Like everyone else in the world during this global pandemic, we have had to make some major changes and readjustments. We haven’t been able to work from inside our office since early March and we now meet exclusively via Zoom. However, we have found that COVID-19 has opened up new opportunities and connections for us. It’s been terrible for everyone…,but there have been some bright sides. 

   
​HEART has developed some new partnerships and deepened existing ones. When the stay-at-home order took effect, we realized that it was going to be very difficult in our remote location with extensive poverty for individuals to isolate themselves adequately. We were particularly concerned about seniors who were not experiencing the same sort of support that schools were giving students. We spoke to Social Services and connected with South-Central Colorado Seniors who have been providing senior lunches at the Saguache Senior Center. Due to the quarantine, seniors were no longer able to go and get their lunches and only seniors had reported a need to either organization. This number seemed far too small to be accurate. 
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After days of making phone calls, we ended up with a list of eighty seniors who felt that they were needing help to stay in isolation. The Town of Saguache allowed us to use the Community Building for storing and preparing food boxes for distribution. South-Central Colorado Seniors delivered the food and we worked with the Department of Social Services to gather volunteers to deliver the boxes. Using the safest practices, boxes of shelf stable food were delivered to eighty senior citizens in Saguache and the KV. We are currently still partnering with Colorado South Central Seniors who are working with the San Luis Valley Local Foods Coalition to provide seniors with local produce. We have been receiving bags of produce every two weeks that we have distributed to seniors in our area.

We were aware of the growing need in the community as uncertainty grew and knew that families and non-seniors were also in need of help; so, we organized COVID-19 relief food box deliveries which have taken place every few weeks. Our funders at The Colorado Trust decided to give out mini-grants to communities in need of COVID-19 relief and HEART applied, receiving $15,000.00 in funding to assist the community. At the same time, the Saguache County Board of Commissioners allowed us to use a $4,000.00  grant that had been awarded for our cancelled Cinco De Mayo Festival for COVID-19 relief. Armed with funding, we set to work finding people who needed extra help. We partnered with Alpine Achievers Initiative to assist two families who had been quarantined and continued to plan food deliveries. 

The mental health of youth has also been a concern. In our already isolated and financially stressed area, quarantine had the potential to be particularly difficult for a variety of reasons. Many youth in the Saguache region lacked internet access and being socially distanced from the support of the school and their peers was especially harsh. With the money from the county Sales Tax Grant and in partnership with Alpine Achievers Initiative, Cooking Matters, and the SLV Census Outreach, we put together activity bags for students which were handed out as they came to collect their belongings from school. The bags contained snacks, board games, a micro-green mini garden kit, art supplies and activities, Census activity bags and Cooking Matters family cooking activity kits and were well received by students.

 
​As an added and timely bonus, we partnered with the 2020 Census San Luis Valley Outreach and the San Luis Valley Boys and Girls Club to boost census participation in the area. Understandably the COVID-19 crisis and shutdown meant that census data was not able to be collected in the common door to door manner. We held a Virtual Census Drive. Residents registered, completed their census online or over the phone and were given a food bag containing the ingredients for a family meal. We had thirty-six residents complete the census through our Virtual Census Drive.

We also recognized a need for masks in our community; and with the help of Caroline Irwin and the Sagebrush Quilters, and Renee Hazard, we were able to distribute seventy cloth masks to the essential businesses still open around the community. Medical grade disposable masks were also acquired by the endlessly resourceful Laurie Vigil and these were distributed to the fire department and EMS. All the masks efforts came together on the day that Governor Polis issued the state mask requirement. In addition, to show support for the essential businesses that stayed open in our community, the youth members of our team created thank you signs to be posted in business windows. 

During the quarantine isolation period, we realized that it was important that we remain in contact with other groups and individuals in our community. We decided to set up a weekly Zoom call with other non-profit and government organizations in our community in order to coordinate our efforts and encourage collaboration. These weekly meetings have continued and various entities pop in weekly to update us on activities, opportunities and news leading to some great collaborations and connections. 

Out of these meetings, we strengthened our relationship with both The Historic Ute Theatre and Alpine Achievers Initiative. We joined forces with the theatre to fund one week of their virtual summer camp for youth ages 6-12  and we made the HEART office a distribution and pickup location for the Alpine Achievers Initiative free sack lunches that they provide for all youth aged 0-18. We have also been partnering with the Saguache County Department of Social Services to distribute extra commodities occasionally during the lunch distribution. 

Moving forward HEART is planning to work virtually as long as it seems prudent. We are planning to continue our Family Leadership Training Institute classes via Zoom. At the same time, Miracle Cale is working on a virtual Career Fair and Career Cabs. We are planning a virtual portion of the events regardless of the status of school attendance. Our Resident Meetings are being continued via Zoom as we continue to move forward to meet the needs of the community while working within the confines of COVID-19.