Here are some amazing local groups that are spreading hope and love and kindness in the form of food, supplies, and more. You can help any of these groups from the safety of your home!
(FLAG)- FRONT LINE APPRECIATION GROUP OF BLOOMFIELD HILLS AND BIRMINGHAM
Local families are pulling together to help those on the front lines, and benefit local restaurants while doing so! The program is really very simple. They collect donations (typically $10-20) and then pool that money together to purchase meals from a local restaurant that then deliver the meals to the local hospitals, to feed those that are working tirelessly during this time. The original FLAG group was created by a partnership of Chatham and Madison New Jersey families, and a group of Bloomfield Village moms have started this local group from that successful model. Follow them on Facebook!
Donate:
They have set up 3 way to donate to FLAG. All donations go 100% to the restaurant meals. Please use “COVID” as the description with any payment:
1) Chase Quickpay: [email protected]
2) PayPal*: go to PayPal.me/bvscmemberships *use “Friends and Family” so we don’t incur charges
3) Venmo: go to www.venmo.com/BVSC-Memberships
City of Detroit
The city of Detroit and The Department of Parks and Recreation are working with companies (see Forgotten Harvest and Gleaners below) to provide meals to children as well as meals to senior citizens and groceries to families during this time. Find out more HERE.
Forgotten Harvest
Forgotten Harvest is operating to provide healthy, nutritious food to our neighbors in need. They are currently working with nonprofit, government, and community leaders to implement contingency plans to deliver food in the most effective and safest way possible given these unprecedented events.They are providing groceries to families in need. You can donate directly on their page HERE.
Restaurants: Detroit is partnering with Forgotten Harvest and Detroit restaurants to “rescue” surplus food that otherwise might go to waste during the COVID-19 outbreak. The donated food will go to families in need, and they will support participating businesses financially by unlocking tax deductions. Business interested can find more information HERE. https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/d05a95d0007f44a3b9f1afc008a8262b
Gleaners
Gleaners offers school food mobiles and mobile drive-up food distributions in response to the current need. Gleaners is coordinating with agency partners to provide food boxes for community members who need support due to temporary workplace displacement caused by precautionary coronavirus closures.
How You Can Help: To support these increased efforts, Gleaners needs your help. Community members are encouraged to donate what they can in this increased time of need or host a virtual food drive.
DIY Medical Masks for Hospital Staff
From the words of Elena Victoria, fashion designer and sewing instructor: As the demands for masks get larger, we can all get crafty at home! What a great learning opportunity for our sewing community to empower kids to make a difference. These masks are CDC compliant and can be made at home. You can absolutely use an old bed sheet (preferably 100% cotton), and some twine, ribbon, or even elastic hair ties to make your masks. Free tutorials are available on www.elenavictoria.co to help teach kids how to complete this meaningful project at home. We hope that the mask shortage will not continue and that there will be better solutions for our doctors and nurses, but in the meantime, we are going to try and help. Elena noted that these masks are a “last resort option” according to the CDC, but it sure is sweet and can teach your kiddos how to sew, AND help others during this time!! You can also find Elena on Facebook. She is an incredible sewing instructor for kids- my boys took a class she had and they absolutely loved it. Follow her to find out about her classes, camps, and more to come.
