LOADING

Type to search

Stepping Up to Help Neighbors in Need During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Avangrid Foundation

Stepping Up to Help Neighbors in Need During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Share

The Avangrid Foundation has helped respond to its share of emergencies– from Hurricanes Harvey, Maria and Irma to home fires, tornadoes and other natural disasters alongside partners like Habitat for Humanity and the American Red Cross.

The coronavirus pandemic, however, has posed new challenges as a widespread health, social and economic crisis. Its effects have touched every household and community across the nation and nearly every country around the world. With conditions rapidly evolving and new information emerging, answering immediate needs was essential yet planning for the longer-term ripple effects also critical. So we asked ourselves:

  • How could we best allocate limited resources, with our response resonating for communities nationally, and having a meaningful impact locally?
  • How do we ensure a common social safety net stays strong and sustainable for those who need it?
  • How to do we prioritize needs of individuals, organizations and communities-at-large such as access to food, housing, shelter, medical treatment and economic support, enhancing but not duplicating efforts of others, in the places where it was needed the most?
  • How would we give flexibly, allowing partners to respond in real-time to rapidly changing realities?
  • How could we make meaningful gifts that take into account changing public health and safety mandates locally and nationally?
  • How do we support immediate needs while maintaining our institutional “steady hand” with partners focused on post-crisis, like continued and equal access to education, or helping to keep arts and cultural institutions thriving?

ONE COMMON THREAD EMERGED AMONG RESPONDERS: TO WORK COLLABORATIVELY. TO NOT GO IT ALONE. MUCH LIKE FACING THIS CRISIS AS INDIVIDUALS, WE FIND THE MOST SUCCESS WHEN WE BAND TOGETHER AND WORK AS ONE TOWARDS A COMMON GOAL, WHETHER THAT’S FOLLOWING STAY-AT-HOME AND SOCIAL DISTANCING GUIDELINES OR SIMPLY LOOKING OUT FOR FELLOW COMMUNITY MEMBERS.

With this in mind, the Foundation committed $1 million – its single largest emergency outlay to date – and connected with national and regional organizations doing critical work on the pandemic’s front lines. The Foundation also worked to create opportunities for AVANGRID employees to give back themselves, providing a dollar-for-dollar match to donations during a special employee giving campaign. Over the course of a month, the campaign generated over $35,000 in direct benefit for people in need.

“Rarely is a crisis like COVID so deeply local and wholly universal. The partnerships forged by the Avangrid Foundation as part of a COVID response leverage the best collective expertise, collaborative resources and innovation to provide a lifeline to the very organizations, households and individuals that we must work to sustain for the greater good. From food insecurity and provision of basic needs, to addressing complex challenges in childcare, or ensuring adequate medical and blood supplies, these partnerships amplify the everyday work of the Foundation and in some communities draws on more that than a century of our companies’ dedication to building sustainable communities and responding to the needs of those who are most at-risk among us.”

—Nicole Licata Grant, Director – Avangrid Foundation

The Foundation’s donations formed part of a larger $2.5 million response from AVANGRID in support of the vibrant and diverse communities served by its 8 Northeast utilities and Avangrid Renewables. The $1.5 million activated by the business addressed needs at the local level, with the Foundation giving designed to intertwine with the local response wherever possible, ensuring the balanced response was both complementary and comprehensive. In doing so, the collective impact and benefit to the community is maximized; where local funds become constrained, regional and national funds can step in to close the gap – and vice versa.

Here’s who we worked with:

OUR NATIONAL PARTNERS

Nationally, the Foundation invested in partnerships with the American Red Cross, Meals on Wheels America, Feeding America and Americares – leading organizations that are consistently there for those in need, be that need emergency and medical aid, food, or health and wellness services.

AMERICAN RED CROSS

For the American Red Cross, the COVID-19 efforts naturally built on an existing multiyear Foundation partnership supporting disaster relief and community preparedness through the Disaster Responder Program. Here, COVID support specifically helped to ensure the continuity of national blood donor program. Every two seconds someone in the U.S. needs blood. Red Cross collection efforts account for around 40% of the national supply. It is a critical, lifesaving service and the need does not subside – even in the midst of a pandemic. As COVID-19 swept across the U.S., the Red Cross faced another public health emergency of its own: thousands of cancelled blood drives, where the Red Cross traditionally sources around 80% of its supply.

Foundation funding enabled the Red Cross to hire and train new phlebotomists and retain other in impacted communities to ensure a sufficient blood supply for patients in need, institute new protocols for disaster workers so that they may safely continue responding to disasters big and small around the country, and much more.

The Red Cross has implemented enhanced disinfecting, donor social distancing, and monitoring protocols to ensure all collection facilities are safe for both volunteer donors and staff. In addition, the Red Cross has distributed thousands of convalescent plasma products from those who have fully recovered from the virus to aid those still fighting it.

Photo courtesy of the American Red Cross
Photo courtesy of the American Red Cross

The Red Cross response is not limited to blood services alone. The Red Cross works to support all who are impacted by disasters of all sizes and scales – which typically number over 60,000 per year. From February to April, Red Cross workers helped more than 53,000 people recover from home fires, provided emergency shelter, supported community feeding efforts, and offered integrated condolence care to families personally impacted by COVID-19 through its Virtual Family Assistance Center. See more about the Red Cross’ lifesaving disaster response here and see what our local partners in Connecticut have accomplished here!

FEEDING AMERICA

According to Feeding America’s estimates, an additional 17 million people could become food insecure in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, bringing the total to 54 million nationwide (or over 1 in 7 Americans), including 18 million children, and reversing improvements achieved over the last decade.

Feeding America serves a nationwide network of 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries and meal programs that jointly distributes 4.3 billion meals each year. 2020, however, is a year like no other. Food banks across the country have reported an average 60% increase in demand for food assistance compared to this time last year.  

Many individual food banks within the Feeding America network have received funding through local Avangrid Networks and Renewables donations and/or as part of the Foundation’s regular giving, again amplifying impact in times of intense need.

Here’s how Feeding America has made a difference in people’s lives:

Photo courtesy of Feeding America
Photo courtesy of Feeding America

MEALS ON WHEELS

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the already vulnerable status of many of America’s seniors. Nearly 20% of Americans are 60 or older. Even prior to the pandemic, 9.5 million were threatened by hunger and 7.1 million seniors lived in poverty, with an income of $234 per week or less.

Photo and infographic courtesy of Meals on Wheels America
Photo and infographic courtesy of Meals on Wheels America

In these times of uncertainty, some seniors may not know where their next meal will come from – particularly in cases where limited mobility, economic hardship, or risk of exposure restrict access to grocery stores or other community resources. Meals on Wheels is often the primary lifeline for our most at-risk seniors and delivers much more than just a meal. 1 in 4 seniors live alone. Feelings of loneliness and isolation are prevalent among this group; feelings which can become compounded by the social restrictions put in place to contain the spread of the virus. For many recipients living alone, the person delivering the meal is often the only person they will see that day. Along with nutritious meals, Meals on Wheels helps provide meaningful care and support, friendly visits, safety checks, community advocacy, and more.

Avangrid Foundation support for Meals on Wheels America extends their funding available to the more than 5,000 affiliated programs across the country to meet growing needs. Here are just a few things funding to Meals on Wheels has made possible:

  • Immediate replenishment and expansion of shelf-stable and frozen meals.
  • Subsidies for additional transportation costs and personnel created by the necessary closures of meal sites that serve at community-based centers (i.e. senior centers) and a reduction in volunteers due to a volunteer force that is itself at-risk (~75% are 55+).
  • Support for telephone assurance and other tech-based programs to enable vital check-ins on the wellbeing of isolated seniors.
  • Curating and disseminating timely, current and critical information to affiliate programs on how to protect themselves, prevent infection and care for those in need as the pandemic progresses.

9 out of 10 local Meals on Wheels programs have reported increased demand for meals. Like Feeding America, many of these affiliates also receivedsupport locally from existing and extraordinary COVID giving throughout the AVANGRID family of companies. And the impact has been huge: to date, over $21.9 million has been delivered to 540+ partners on the front lines to combat COVID-19, and 9 out of 10 recipients say Meals on Wheels received at home improves their health.

AMERICARES

The world took three months to reach the mark of 100,000 reported infections. The second 100,000 were added in just 12 days. As of July 1, the number of confirmed cases reached 2.7 million in the United States alone, with a death toll of around 130,000 most heavily borne by communities of color, especially Black Americans facing systemic inequality due to lack of access to quality health care.

This health inequity crisis is at the heart of Americares’ response.

Photo courtesy of Americares
Photo courtesy of Americares

Americares is a Stamford, Conn.-based global health relief and development organization that responds to communities worldwide affected by poverty or disaster. When people are in crisis, it makes sure that health comes first – through its emergency programs, access to life-changing medication and medical supplies, and affordable and quality community health programs. Since its founding in 1979, Americares has delivered more than $17 billion in humanitarian assistance and health-focused programs to 164 countries, including the U.S.

In response to COVID-19, the Avangrid Foundation/Americares partnership has helped supply PPE to emergency responders across the U.S. and ensured the continued provision of important medical and mental health services in underserved communities.

Americares is working closely with its network of 1,000 safety-net health clinics across the U.S. (including the 4 Americares Free Clinics in Connecticut) to help reduce the impact of COVID by building the clinics’ capacity to serve low-income, uninsured, and underinsured populations. Along with educating health workers in infection prevention and control, disaster preparedness, and mental health and psychosocial support, Americares has deployed COVID-19 specific training modules to ensure health workers treating critically ill patients are equipped to manage their own stress and anxiety, as well as support patients and caregivers who rely on them. Health care workers play a dual role in a crisis, as both survivors and providers of care. Without support of their own, they cannot best provide the critical services needed to save lives. To date, more than 6,500 health workers have received training in psychological first aid and coping skills to handle fear, stress and anxiety.

In addition, Americares has delivered protective supplies like masks, gowns, gloves, and disinfectant to health facilities in COVID-19 hot spots across 14 countries.

500+ SHIPMENTS. OVER 140 TONS. 2.3 MILLION MASKS. 129,000 GLOVES. 40,000 GOWNS. AND MORE.

In the U.S. alone, Americares has delivered nearly 120 tons of protective supplies to health facilities in 49 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands and Northern Mariana Islands – including over 20 tons of PPE for Native American communities devastated by COVID-19. In May, the Navajo Nation surpassed New York and New Jersey for the highest per-capita infection rate in the country. Read more about the aid here.

Photo courtesy of Americares
Photo courtesy of Americares

THE REGIONAL RESPONSE

Additionally, the Foundation saw the rapid emergence of various COVID-19 community response funds across the country, established by consortia of partners that include private philanthropists, community foundations and United Ways. These funds work to pool funding from public and private entities and rapidly deploy it to individuals and/or local nonprofits serving our most vulnerable. This approach allows communities to provide aid in both a targeted or flexible fashion, depending on what its specific needs and priorities are, for individuals and organizations.

Seeing another powerful opportunity to build upon the $1.5 million activated locally by the AVANGRID family of companies, as well as its own national efforts, the Foundation used this “fund the funders” strategy to support nearly a dozen funds in Connecticut, Maine, New York, Massachusetts and Oregon, with a collective $500,000 contribution.

COVID Response Map July 9.jpg

OUR IMPACT: POWER IN NUMBERS

In New York, the Foundation supported 6 funds, managed by four partners, spanning nearly 25 counties across Western and Central New York, the Finger Lakes, and the Southern Tier and unifying diverse areas served by either NYSEG or RG&E – and in some cases, both.

As a state that faced both strong and early impact from COVID-19, the need to mobilize quickly and deliver much-needed services to the community was immense, and our partners delivered. After its establishment on March 24, the WNY COVID-19 Community Response Fund hit the ground running, surveying the needs of over 1,000 nonprofits in the region. Just two weeks later, the fund announced its first round of grantees. With the support of the Foundation, 100 other community partners and nearly 2,000 individuals, the fund has awarded a total of $6.8 million in grants to 300+ nonprofit organizations. Overall, the Foundation’s 6 partner relief funds have granted over $11 million to the community, ranging from drive-thru food distributions and refugee outreach in Rochester to combating rural poverty in Madison County and supplying PPE to the Southern Tier.

Like similar relief funds across New York and in other states around the country, the initial phases of giving focused on addressing the immediate, essential needs of economically vulnerable groups: food, housing, healthcare and mental health services, transportation, childcare, and more. As the crisis continues to unfold, this collaborative network of philanthropic leaders is working with the community to overcome evolving challenges and meet long-term needs – together.

“Avangrid’s generous support of the Community Crisis Fund exemplifies the tremendous partnerships that advance greater Rochester. Together our community is helping the helpers, those nonprofits on the front lines making sure that our neighbors are safe, healthy, fed and housed – and that-essential workers have transportation and child care.”

—Jennifer Leonard, CEO – Rochester Area Community Foundation

Photo courtesy of United Way of Greater New Haven / Maza Rey Photography
Photo courtesy of United Way of Greater New Haven / Maza Rey Photography

In Connecticut and Massachusetts, nonprofit coalitions have been connecting and coordinating with the community to get funds into the hands of those who need it most.

Connecticut COVID-19 Charity Connection (4-CT) has created the 4-CT Card to provide vulnerable individuals and families excluded from existing federal relief programs with pre-paid debit cards to help pay for food, clothing, and other basic needs. It has also coordinated mobile testing programs across the state, expanded a “warmline” for residents to call for counseling on subclinical mental health issues (844-Talk-4CT) and receive referrals to specialized services, provided critical learning tools to students at home, and more. Similarly in Connecticut, the Statewide United Ways COVID-19 Response Fund (a collaboration of 15 local United Ways) is providing $200 stipends to economically impacted individuals, including those who have lost jobs or have reduced work hours, so that they can take care of basic household necessities. Most recipients were already living paycheck to paycheck and are part of a population United Way calls ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed). As of May, more than 1,000 households across the state had benefited from the United Ways’ assistance.

Additionally, AVANGRID employees donated their time to support a United Way drive-thru food distribution at a school in New Haven’s Hill neighborhood. Thanks to volunteers who unloaded boxes of food from delivery trucks, packed bags for recipients, and loaded car trunks, the event fed 250 families in a safe, socially distant fashion!

Supporting community-based organizations and residents of Berkshire County, the COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund for Berkshire County has awarded nearly $2 million through over 120 grants to the community. Much of this funding has supported low-income families of all ages and backgrounds, with significant support also to seniors, immigrants and communities of color, essential workers, people experiencing homelessness or living with mental health and addiction disorders, and other groups.

Here are just a few projects this fund has supported:

  • Mobile food pantries.
  • Purchasing food from local farms to benefit low-income families and food insecure adults.  
  • Launching a virtual farmers market that has served over 750 households and supports 15 farmers and food producers.
  • Emergency childcare for residents and frontline workers.
  • Preserving support systems for women of color and promoting cultural and multilingual literacy for children of all backgrounds.

As of mid-June, the fund has paused its grantmaking in order for its lead organizations – Berkshire United Way, Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, Northern Berkshire United Way and Williamstown Community Chest – to assess the region’s longer-term needs related to the pandemic and path to recovery. Learn more about Berkshire’s response to the COVID-19 crisis here.

In Maine and Oregon, the Oregon Community Foundation’s Recovery Fund and the Maine Community Foundation’s COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund are engaging in response and recovery efforts across their respective states, with special attention to both Maine and Oregon’s diverse and rural communities.

Through March and April, OCF received an unprecedented number of requests and grant applications, many from organizations either facing operational challenges posed by pandemic-related closures or facing a sudden surge in their own demand.

As of July, OCF has awarded nearly $9 million in grants to every corner of Oregon, supporting children, families and education through youth development/mentorship, family support services, and out-of-school programming as well as helping the unhoused shelter in place.

To date, MaineCF has given over 200 grants and $2.4 million to support area agencies on aging, community action programs, homeless shelters, food pantries, organizations supporting immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, and other organizations addressing basic needs.

“While this is a challenging time for all Maine people, it’s a matter of actual survival for some. If ever there was a time to help our vulnerable neighbors, this is it. Thanks to Avangrid Foundation/CMP and other generous donors to the Maine Community Foundation’s COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund. These funds directly support frontline nonprofit organizations serving the needs of those most affected by the pandemic.” 

—Steve Rowe, President and CEO – Maine Community Foundation

By leveraging the expertise of philanthropic leaders and pooling our resources with other foundations, corporations, nonprofits and individual donors, we are an integral part of a $34+ million support network for these 5 states alone. That is power in numbers.


The Avangrid Foundation is committed to uplifting neighbors in need and connecting our communities to support when help is most needed, in line with the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and our mission to build sustainable, vibrant and more equal communities.

This action supports:

E-WEB-Goal-01.png
E-WEB-Goal-02.png
E-WEB-Goal-03.png

E-WEB-Goal-11.png
E-WEB-Goal-17.png

Leave a Comment