EACM Update
Dear EACM Friends,
My prayer is that everyone has continued to stay safe and healthy throughout this difficult time. I know that your prayers and good thoughts have protected the staff and limited volunteers that have continued to work to respond to the needs of our community. Thank you for that!
EACM continues to offer food assistance Monday through Thursday 10AM – 2PM. So many new families from every zip code and neighborhood in our service area. It truly highlights how a sudden crisis can topple any family’s security. It has been an honor and privilege to serve. Our food stock is quite ample at this point. And we have been receiving financial donations designated directly for food assistance. We appreciate this generosity. I would just mention that right now it is challenging to purchase food in bulk from either Meijer or Kroger. EACM will be able to utilize these funds, but perhaps not until the crisis has significantly passed us and normal operations at food retail has resumed. Kelly, our food pantry manager, told me yesterday that these are the items that we could use a little boost on: Pancake Mix, Syrup, Jelly, Dried Beans, Pasta Sauce, and Saltines.
We are also cranking out emergency financial assistance at a stunning pace. Since March 16th, EACM has allocated almost $50,000 in utility and housing payments to families. Again, many of those recipients never dreamed they would be on the receiving end of social services. I have make an application to Metro Louisville for more Emergency Housing Assistance dollars, and I’m hopeful that the community ministries will receive another disbursement from the Community Foundation to respond to this particular need as well. If you hold accounts at the Community Foundation, it would be helpful to alert whomever your contact is there and let them know you are a supporter of EACM and would support continued funding to the community ministries, especially, EACM. Our resources from the Louisville Water Company and LGE continue to remain adequate, so we can still do a lot of good there.
We miss our volunteers terribly! Seeing you all will be such a boost to the spirit. But we know we must be patient and wise. At this point, (and really we are all guessing at this), perhaps June 1 may be a target date for beginning to bring back volunteers. That will give us some time to see how the rolling re-opening is going in other sectors. Of course, even as we begin to bring volunteers back – please keep in mind, things will look and operate quite differently.
Thank you again for sustaining us by holding us in prayer. Please feel free to reach with any questions or thoughts. And continue to take care.
Peace, Carrie
Rev. Carrie Gerard
Executive Director
Eastern Area Community Ministries
w 502.426.2824 ext. 311