At Assisting Hands Home Care, we have continued to provide in-home care to seniors in the Northern Virginia area during the COVID-19 outbreak. While many things have changed over the past month impacting nearly every aspect of our normal daily lives, one thing that hasn’t changed is the fact that many seniors in our community require assistance with basic activities such as bathing, toileting, meal preparation, etc. Our team of caregivers are working tirelessly to assist our clients with those daily needs and also encouraging safety precautions to help keep our clients safe and healthy. Not only are our caregivers providing excellent care for our clients, but they are also working diligently to encourage safety precautions recommended by the Center for Disease Control (CDC), such as washing hands frequently, cleaning high touch surfaces, etc.
One of the CDC’s recommendations that has changed recently is their guidance around wearing face masks. Initially, the CDC only recommended masks for people that were infected with COVID-19. However, over the past week, the CDC began recommending that everyone wear masks when going to public areas like the grocery store. As a result, it’s been difficult to find face masks for our clients and our caregivers to wear when they are in a public or enclosed area.
I happened to see a post on Nextdoor about a local group of volunteers that started an effort called Let’s Breathe (https://sites.google.com/view/lets-breathe/home). It’s a 100% volunteer-run grassroots campaign aiming to fill the critical need for protective masks. Their goal is to supply homemade mask covers to those in need of additional protection from the virus. Currently, they serve Virginia, Washington D.C., Washington state, and Arizona. They have volunteers helping in their local neighborhoods by getting masks to the healthcare heroes serving those communities. They donated over 80 masks to Assisting Hands so our caregivers would have additional protection from the virus when they are out working on behalf of our clients. Our request was just a drop in the bucket as they have donated thousands of masks within their targeted communities. This is one of many examples that I’ve seen where communities are banding together to help the greater good. Here is a link to their Go Fund Me page: gf.me/u/xr9b2r.
As we navigate through this difficult time, it’s incredibly encouraging to witness so many people across the country joining together to help one another.
