Covid-19 creates new opportunities to volunteer
Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird today said the COVID-19 pandemic is spurring a greater interest in volunteering, and she promoted new nonprofit volunteering opportunities now available for those who want to safely share their time and energy:
- Nebraska Impact has organized a portal for connecting people with opportunities to volunteer with or donate to Lincoln organizations. Volunteers can choose “COVID-19” under “select a category.” The site can be found at NEvolunteers.com/lincoln.
- UNL’s Center for Civic Engagement allows volunteers to sign up for opportunities to serve with nonprofit organizations in COVID-19-related work at unl.givepulse.com. This effort is open to all members of the community.
Links to these efforts are also available at covid19.lincoln.ne.gov (click on “how to help.”).
Volunteers are encouraged to follow safety precautions when serving. Those who have not been feeling well, have been around someone who is sick, or have been traveling are urged to stay home and refrain from serving in a way that would require them to travel outside the home or interact physically with others.
“There is opportunity in the midst of this challenge, opportunity to transform ourselves, and to transform our city, for the better,” Mayor Gaylor Baird said. “Moments like these offer us a chance to draw upon our deep wells of love and compassion and to remind us of our capacity to love and serve others. This is our opportunity to reverse the trend toward isolation and to create a social stimulus alongside the economic stimulus. At the end of the day, the best support people can find is in each other. It is our role in the government to support the community in re-discovering its true source of strength: our people.”
Mayor Gaylor Baird invites the public to share stories of love, compassion, and service by sending emails to [email protected]. She said the city would like to collect and share these stories as a means of inspiring others to serve.
She said Aging Partners also plans to launch NeighborLNK – a new effort to pair individuals who are homebound and who seek additional support with healthy volunteers in the community. More information will be released next week.
