Transcript:
Hello. Welcome to the safe travels podcast. This is the show that helps you get rid of those travel worries so you can sit back, relax, and enjoy your trip.
However, nobody is traveling these days. We are in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic here in the United States, and most of the country is on some sort of lockdown.
However, the good news is that all of these people that would normally be planning trips, taking trips, talking about travel, are great people and they want to help out. People are looking for ways to help. They’re putting aside their travel aspirations and trying to find ways to contribute.
So today I have a list for you of several different ways that you can help.
Most of them are charities or nonprofits that are directly helping with the coronavirus efforts. I’ll give you a little overview about each one, how they are specifically helping, and at the end of the show I’ll give you a link where you can get more information.
These groups are hurting, just like all other businesses right now. They are facing an increased demand, but at the same time, they are being forced to cancel fundraising events and other ways that they normally make money.
So here are some nonprofits that would really welcome donations.
The American Red Cross.
Due to the cancellation of blood drives, the Red Cross faces a severe blood shortage. They are certainly encouraging healthy individuals to donate now to maintain a sufficient supply.
Next one is the Boys and Girls Club of America. This is the organization that raises funds to provide groceries to kids in more than 2,500 clubs. Plus they have virtual school support, academic support, such as digital activities and learning opportunities. They’re trying to help a lot of the kids that are at home right now with nothing else to do with school closures.
Next. There’s a group called the CDC foundation. . This is not the actual CDC, the Center for Disease Control but, created by Congress, the foundation supports the critical health protection work of CDC and prevention. It’s basically helping raise emergency response funds to help the CDC to respond to the coronavirus.
Next we have the Center for Disease Philanthropy. The CDP’s, as they’re known, Coronavirus response fund is supporting nonprofit organizations working in areas identified as having high number of affected individuals, and those that are working with the most vulnerable populations. They’re really emphasized on helping healthcare workers with purchases of masks, gowns, gloves, and the other protective equipment that they need…and also supporting quarantined and vulnerable individuals.
The next group is called Direct Relief. They work in the U S and internationally to equip doctors and nurses with lifesaving medical resources. This group is delivering protective masks, the gloves, the gowns, and everything that the healthcare workers need.
The next group is called Feeding America. It’s the nation’s largest domestic hunger relief organization, has a network of 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries. All donations to its Coronavirus response fund help food banks across the country as they support the most hard hit areas during the pandemic.
The next group is called Feed the Children. As we know, most kids are out of school right now. This group works with a network of thousands of partner agencies across the country with food pantries, shelters, food kitchens, and churches.
The next group is called First Book. Donations to this group will help deliver 7 million books to children in need who don’t have internet access or home libraries to keep learning.
The next group is Meals on Wheels. This organization delivers food to the country’s most vulnerable seniors. Donations to this group will help replenish food supplies, subsidize additional transportation and personnel, and enable tech based efforts to check on isolated elderly patients.
This next group has a long name, but they’re doing great work. The National Association for the Exchange of Industrial Resources. This group collects excess inventory from businesses and they redistribute these goods to schools, churches and nonprofits. So we have a lot of organizations that have extra goods just sitting around and they figure out a way to get them to the people that need them. Businesses can look through their inventory, clean out of warehouses and donate unwanted goods, overstocked items, obsolete items, factory seconds, anything that’s extra that can be abused to someone.
The next group is called No Kid Hungry. With schools closed this campaign to end childhood hunger in America is deploying funds to ensure access to free meals, providing $1 billion in grants immediately with more to come to help schools and community groups feed kids during the outbreak and make sure that families know How to find meals when schools are closed.
The next nonprofit helps a particularly hard hit area. The Restaurant Workers Community Foundation. This organization’s Coronavirus crisis relief fund will immediately direct money to organizations leading on the ground efforts in the restaurant community and provide zero interest loans to businesses to maintain payroll during closure.
The next group you’ve probably heard of is the Salvation Army. This group is ensuring that people have access to food, shelter, and childcare through its national network. This can include drive through food pickups, community-based food delivery through canteens and meals at salvation army facilities. And they’re also providing snacks and hydration to first responders.
The next is called Team Rubicon. This group mobilizes military veterans to help people respond and recover from disasters during the Cofid-19 crisis. This group is assisting local, state, and federal partners with emergency humanitarian support and emergency services. This help includes delivering food, water, and shelter, providing assistance at testing sites, manning call centers, and helping transport cruise ship passengers who have completed their mandatory quarantine at home.
Finally, we have the United Way Worldwide. This fund supports communities struggling in the wake of the virus by supporting the local United way…a very large network of funds to the United way will help with everything from connecting families to food pantries, aiding those experiencing financial hardships due to lost wages.
Finally, in a more local way outside of the nonprofit area, we have some local efforts that you can do. First of all, we’ve talked about struggling restaurants and small businesses . Unfortunately, they are closed. They do not have income right now, but they still have payroll. They still have rent. They still have bills to pay.
One of the better ways to do this is a gift card. You’re basically purchasing some of their services in advance and at a later date you can collect on them.
A lot of people have stepped up their takeout and delivery efforts as well, if that works for you, and you can also support servers and other workers in this line of work by donating to the nonprofit we mentioned earlier, the Restaurant Workers Community Foundation.
Finally, on a very local level, more in your neighborhood or in your community, is making sure our seniors are taken care of. This older group is among the most vulnerable to complications from Coronavirus. If you know someone who is elderly and at home, consider checking in on them and see if you can help them shop for food or deliver groceries to their house. They might be nervous about going out to the store just like everybody, but since they’re in a high risk group, they can be extremely nervous about it.
So that is a long list of ways that you can help. But now how do you get in touch with them?
You can visit my website, which is travelinsurancereview.net and on the homepage you will see a link for recent podcasts.
There will be a page for this podcast with all of the information about the different organizations that we talked about with links to all of them and some more details. So please visit to check out how you can help.
Also one more ask. I’m sure a lot of you and a lot of your friends and family are also looking for ways to help out, and I would appreciate it if you would share this episode with them or at least their link to the resources. Many people are trying to find a way to help and you can help them do so by sharing.
Thank you for listening and safe travels.