VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION

Jay Height:
Hi, I’m Jay Height here at Shepherd Community. Want to give you an update this week on what’s happening here in the Near Eastside of Indianapolis. Thank you for your support. Thank you for your prayers for our neighbors. This morning, we started off with news of yet another neighbor who has contracted COVID-19 and we know many are dealing with this challenge these days. We’re thankful that we are here and that you’ve made it possible. Your support makes it possible for us to continue to help. You see the tent behind me where we’re continuing to distribute food to our families, multiple times through the week. Six days a week, we distribute food.

Jay Height:
We are looking to say, how do we move forward? What’s the path to recovery? Yes, we are here in relief and we’ll be here for some time. We will continue to help our families and you make that possible with your support. But one of the exciting updates that I got was that 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. And so we’re excited that 61 as of this morning, 61 of our adults have signed up. We are going to move forward.

Jay Height:
While we are busy here in the parking lot, allowing folks to come in and have created the hotspot so they can sign up for unemployment, in a year from now, we want to talk about employment as we deal with the medical issues and try to triage and support families who are dealing with health crisis, we want to help them know better how to care for their own health in the future, and have access to the medicines they need and the devices that we can provide them. E-learning for the kids, it doesn’t stop when the school year ends. We will continue to be pushing education through the summer months. Many of our kids, we’ve seen a regression and because of the difficulties in e-learning, but we’re not stopping, our teachers are doing a fabulous job. Our out of school staff are doing a fabulous job in connecting with them, and we’re going to continue moving forward. This is a path. This is a road to recovery, and we want you to join us in this journey. Thanks and have a great day.