A place were love resides
Thank you for all of your love and financial support toward our year end goal! See below for our progress.
With a crisis of this magnitude, #GivingTuesday looked very different this year. Among the many moving fundraising letters I received yesterday, the one that stood out to me the most was from “Friends of Coler.” Coler Hospital is about a half mile from my home. Coler is a crowded home for hundreds of people with disabilities.
Julia Ferguson and Nicole Izsak write, “While we may have experienced a slight summer respite, our Coler neighbors have not had any relief. They have been cut off from family and friends, stuck inside with poor wifi and limited courtyard access for more than 250 days.” (note: courtyard access = ‘go outside’)
For more than 250 days we have more or less been told to #StayHome. How has that been for you? Some of us may have greater appreciation for our homes while others may be feeling like the walls are moving! Either way, a home we all long for is more than just a shelter to be kept safe from getting or spreading the virus. A home we all long for is a place where love resides.
With that in mind it’s no surprise to hear of the many ways that our voluntary advocates have helped to make people’s apartments feel more like a home we all want. A few have purchased and set up new furniture for the person with disabilities they are matched with (their 'partner'). One cleaned out and decluttered their partner and family’s home. Others have been delivering homemade food, mailing art supplies, and setting up online streaming and cell phone services.
One voluntary advocate sent a housewarming gift to her partner (Sharaya) to hang on the wall of her new apartment.
Sharaya says this about her new home,
“I am at peace here. I have not been at peace like this in years. When I come home I can sit down and rest.”
Sharaya says this about Do For One,
“There’s not another organization out there that spends time trying to find friends for people with disabilities. Thank you for Andrew and Ali who had this idea to lay down their lives for this work. And thank you for Jane who gave up her job to work for Do For One and come along this work.”
...
During COVID we've made over 300 phone calls to survey needs of partners with disabilities and their families that we serve. We identified those who were most at risk, what was needed, and began communicating with all of our voluntary advocates throughout the city who have already established a one to one committed and supportive relationship with each of them.
Your support enables us to not only build supportive relationships in order to address practical needs like a food delivery but to see more people's homes become a place where love resides.
Thank you for helping us raise $6,157 of our $25,000 year end goal so far!
Or mail a check to:
Do For One NYC
455 Main Street #4H
New York, NY 10044
...
So much love to you all,
Andrew
P.S. That's it for now unless you want an encore? :) OK, here’s another story.
Before returning to the U.S., a woman reached out to us for help. This was months before the pandemic. When I met her at the nursing home she was placed in, she had one bag and a broken wheelchair. We recruited a voluntary advocate to help her transition. The advocate immediately got her some much needed clothes. Then she set her up with a cell phone.
Then the pandemic hits... Who knew a cell phone would be the life-line she needed to not only stay in touch with loved ones while locked inside of the nursing home but to secure an apartment of her own on the Upper West Side. Then we helped coordinate new friends and allies in her neighborhood to transform her new apartment into a home.
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