VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION

Jay Height:
Hi, it’s Jay Height here at Shepard Community. And today we’re going to take a look back over the last 120 days when we pivoted to deal with major crisis of an economy, of a upheaval because of racism and a pandemic. We appreciate you helping make it possible for us to be here and to connect to our community and to do amazing things because of our partnership. Enjoy.

Jay Height:
Make sure you’re using your hand sanitizer, washing your hands and doing all the things that will help you and help us keep our community and our neighbors safe. Just wanted to take a quick minute to share with you things that we’re doing because of friends like you. We are distributing sack breakfasts and sack lunches to all of our students. We’re passing groceries out to families. I am thankful for folks who’ve helped support us so that we could get computers and tablets into our students’ hands so that they can be learning through this time, and for probably an extended time. We’re trying to call all of our families twice a week. Social isolation will be a continued challenge for all of us.

Speaker 2:
I’m sure you’ve heard the order from our governor to stay home. That starts tomorrow.

Jay Height:
We may not be able to meet together, but community is more important now than ever. There’s a big need in our community, so we are providing food packs to our families in the neighborhood. We’ve repositioned our paramedic to be working in the homes of those folks who have chronic health issues. But right now can’t go to the doctor, that they can’t go see those who they would normally see for their medical care.

Speaker 2:
April 6th begins our formal e-learning for Shepherd Academy.

Jay Height:
Family support is one of the key five areas that we’re focusing on. While you see in the background, folks are picking up food again, we’re helping pay the bills and thankful to a grant that we received through a consortium of funders that is operated by United Way. We’re able to pay bills.

Speaker 2:
In our effort to continue to communicate and share, I wanted to let you know that we will be using Shepherd’s YouTube channel as a means for regular communication.

Jay Height:
Just last week, we were able to make our parking lot of hotspot, so folks can come and sign up for unemployment and access wifi if they don’t have it at home. And many of our neighbors don’t. 61 of our adults have signed up for a class on a new training program. We have worked hard to put over 200 devices in people’s homes, paying to help them get connected to the internet or hotspots. And now we are taking that for what we use for e-learning for the kids, we are using for the adults.

Speaker 3:
We have been connected to a local ER doc who was volunteering to check in on anyone who may have health concern at the moment.

Speaker 2:
We wanted to share with everyone that we’ve been connected to another awesome opportunity through our partner, Ivy Tech. They are offering free classes and trainings to 10,000 people.

Jay Height:
In August, just blocks away from our current location at Vermont and Sherman Drive will be the Minnie Hartman Early Childhood Center. We’re excited about this new venture that has been over two years in the making.

Speaker 3:
We are currently taking registrations for six week old through four year olds, and before and aftercare for school aged children.

Jay Height:
88,000 meals have been delivered to our families. Over $550,000 has been spent in a variety of ways to meet the needs of our neighbors. We’re thankful to the businesses, to the churches, to the individuals, who’ve supported our families through Shepherd Community. And we recognize that you’re investing in them through us, and we appreciate your trust in enabling us to better meet the needs of our neighbors.

Speaker 4:
It’s a true blessing, because I’m currently not working. So without this help, my kids would be hungry right now.