VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION

Jay Height:
I’m tired, and I’m sure many of you are as well. These last 120 days have been something that we’ll never forget. It’s been trying, it’s been a great opportunity for us to deepen the relationships of our neighbors, but we’ve all been pushed and each day seems to be a new challenge and a new problem to solve and yet we’ve continued on.

Jay Height:
Soon after this whole reality of COVID came possible through the great partnership we have with Chorus, a local consulting company, they worked with us and we developed the 120-day plan. And as we come to the conclusion of that in just about two weeks, I want to review with you some things. 88,000 meals, individual 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. This wasn’t money budgeted, and we are so blessed that many of you stepped forward to write checks. We’re thankful to the businesses, to the churches, to the individuals who’ve supported our families through Shepard 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.

Jay Height:
The challenges are great. I was talking to one of our fine leaders of our city, James Taylor at the Boner Center and within just an hour of the Rent Assistance Program opening up online this week, over a third of the $15 million had already been spoken for. The needs are great. And yes, we’ll continue to meet those needs. Some of the other celebrations, 260 plus units, whether it was a Chromebook or an iPad have been delivered into the homes of students so that they can continue the e-learning.

Jay Height:
Over 60% of our kids daily were on their assignments, not a hundred percent, not where we’d like it to be, but a great percentage and we know that there’s great work to be done. This summer we’ve moved into our programs and you saw last week what we were doing for our kids and that e-learning continues and in just a few weeks, school starts. We’re not sure what that’s going to look like. We’re doing everything to make it as safe as possible for our students and our staff.

Jay Height:
We have many of our own neighbors who we are training so that they can go to work for us at the Minnie Hartmann Early Childhood Center. There’s a lot to the days ahead, it’s going to be defined about how we help our families get and keep jobs. Upward stability is centered around this idea of working and we want to help our adults do that as well.

Jay Height:
You’ll be hearing in just a few weeks the road to recovery. We have a lot to celebrate over these last 120 days, but we’ve got a long road ahead and we’re going to invite you to journey with us as we move forward to continue the investment in the lives of our kids. It’s special days and many people have helped make this possible and we appreciate that. Come join us for the next phase of this journey on the road to recovery.