Sixty-five Arlington nonprofits have received a total of nearly $800,000 in emergency response support from the Arlington Community Foundation COVID-19 Prompt Response Fund. On Giving Tuesday Now and throughout the week of May 4, the Community Foundation hopes Arlington residents and businesses will help replenish the fund to meet continuing urgent, crisis-related needs.
Giving Tuesday Now is a new global day of giving and unity that will take place on May 5 as an emergency response to the unprecedented need caused by COVID-19. This is in addition to the regularly scheduled Giving Tuesday, which takes place the Tuesday after Thanksgiving each year. The Community Foundation is asking that everyone in the Arlington community who has a little extra to give provide support to this fund or any other nonprofit that is helping those in crisis.
“The community’s support for our neighbors who are in crisis has been extraordinary, but the need is accelerating as the health crisis and its economic fallout continue,” said Jennifer Owens, president and CEO of the Community Foundation. “Our response funds are almost depleted, leaving many of the Arlington groups on the front lines of the COVID crisis in urgent need of support.”
The Community Foundation is working hard to determine the best way to help the people who need support the most in our community as funds dwindle. As the crisis evolves, Owens anticipates that the support will shift from direct emergency relief to recovery support. Since the onset of the COVID outbreak in Arlington, Community Foundation staff, board members, and representatives from both the County and other local funders have met daily to assess grant requests from nonprofit organizations on the front lines with clients, patients, and residents impacted by the health crisis and its economic fallout. This includes organizations focused on emergency food needs, housing, health needs for the uninsured or underinsured, and support for hourly workers displaced from their wage-earning positions.
To make a gift to Arlington Community Foundation’s Prompt Response Fund or see a list of the nonprofits supported to date, visit www.arlcf.org