How Can I Help Without Helping the Spread? Coronavirus Tips

The human experience thrives upon helping. We do not ask for crisis, but many of our greater moments have come from our gathering in response. It’s the realization of our capacity to love; and it is only in love that the world makes sense.

Unfortunately, a pandemic like coronavirus makes it harder to help victims because we are supposed to keep away from them. Even if one is willing to risk their own health, exposure to COVID-19 puts others at risk. Worry not. We have collected some ideas!

Donating Money for Coronavirus Relief

There are many institutions set-up to allocate resources to the cause. This is very safe; you can digitally transfer funds so that these non-profits can continue their work for COVID-19 victims. Of course, there is a trust factor. Scammers, whose emptiness will be their greatest punishment, exploit situations like this. We’ve done the homework to provide some reliable options.

Feeding America

Elmhurst believes that hunger should not exist. We love Feeding America because it responds to a domino that fell when most schools closed indefinitely: the loss of the reliable school lunch. There are a couple options to help. You can donate to Feeding America’s national activities. Or you can locate a food bank near you and help the indirect coronavirus victims in your own community.

As a maker of nutritious plant-based beverages, Elmhurst is blessed with the ability to donate goods to the cause. Being Buffalo-based, we’ve given back to our own beloved community, sending 12oz single-serve oat milk – a lunchbox favorite – to the WNY Food Bank; and single-serve oat milk and unsweetened hazelnut milk to another worthy organization, Feed the Children, which is accepting monetary donation.

Meals on Wheels

One of life’s beautiful curiosities is how children grow into caretakers of their elders. Meals on Wheels exists for this exact reason, and its relevance has never been clearer. Like hungry children, many among the elderly have become victims of coronavirus in need of help – even when they aren’t sick. Their quarantine is harsher because the virus preys on the elderly; and visitors – even children and grandchildren – are discouraged from visiting for fear of spread. Meals on Wheels, though, keeps moving just like its name, overcoming limitations in obtaining, preparing, and affording food. So, if you’re able, we suggest that you donate to help deliver meals to victims of coronavirus. To give to your own community, Meals on Wheels’ website will help you find your local branch.

Donating Time for Coronavirus Relief

Time is at least equal to money as a gift. It isn’t a good idea to pay visit to the sick in hospitals, but did you know that you can even volunteer from home? Some people are finding some creative ways to give!

From the elderly holed-up in their homes, to the sick in hospitals, to the young and well, humans have an inherent need for companionship and support. The CDC provides advice for reaching out to groups which may be stigmatized with undeserved blame for the virus. (These regrettable attitudes tend to crop-up, driven by the few, in times of trouble; we must quickly overwhelm them with love.)

Why not tack some errands for the quarantined onto your necessary forays into the world for supplies? FaceTime your relatives? Write a letter to someone holed-up in a lonely hospital? It all means the world.

Donating Things for Coronavirus Relief

COVID-19 has stripped stores of some vital, or at least highly preferred, items. If you’ve been to what was once a paper products aisle, you know what we mean. The combined forces of high demand, hoarding, and price gouging have made simple things like soap and hand sanitizer difficult to almost impossible to get. Medical masks (ones that actually work) and ventilators form their own category of scarcity.

Critical Goods

Chances are, you won’t be making your own hand sanitizer or masks (though some distilleries, pharmaceutical companies, and even SpaceX are doing just this). Still, there remains a need for donations to help people – particularly victims, the vulnerable, and healthcare providers – outlast coronavirus. For example, Cavanaugh Bell, a seven-year-old anti-bullying activist from Maryland, is assembling “care packs” of cleaning supplies and other essentials for senior citizens.

America’s highly strained hospitals also require donations. The beauty of giving is that it can be tailored to our unique resources and talents. Elmhurst is donating products – including its new line of rejuvenating oat lattes – to healthcare workers. America cannot thank them enough for putting in long hours, while risking their own health, to help coronavirus victims – plus everyone else who relies on America’s hospitals for care.

Giving Blood

There is a need for blood on a good day. Then there is now… Full hospitals and a sheltering public have increased demand while decreasing supply of blood. This is never an easy one. Given my own qualms, blood donation borders on the heroic. If you are so disposed to give, in fact literally, of yourself, the American Red Cross remains open for business with a host of safety protocols and procedures in place.

Give Anything, Give Love

The coronavirus pandemic has torn into the fabric of our society. Together we will mend it stronger than before. We are not talking about our economy; we’re talking about the ties that bind human beings. For, in this darkness, these have come into light. Now we also see the reason we have been given so many diverse gifts. I do not believe it is for oneself; I do believe that it is for moments like these. Time, money, or goods: you will give something beautiful. May we bring it forth into a wiser world when the sun returns…and it will.