VashonBePrepared

Food and housing: many residents struggled to pay for food and housing costs when their jobs were disrupted by covid-19. Vashonbeprepared partnered with social service organizations including vashon maury community food bank, vashon youth and family services, vashon island school district nutrition program, and a number of others to support the cost of food and meals, rents and other needs for families in dire straits. Aid for 2021 included 7,371 meals (many of them delivered to households and neighborhoods), 1,900 bags of groceries (many of them delivered to households), 205 instances of family assistance (rent relief and other emergency support), 881 counseling sessions (for mental health and domestic violence advocacy)

Economic recovery: in collaboration with vashon chamber of commerce, we funded 50 business workshops/webinars for economic recovery and covid safety. For worker economic relief, our ask an expert program, a partnership with the chamber of commerce, walked 400 residents through the application process for unemployment benefits and related household relief opportunities, fielding 1,700 telephone consultations.

Covid 19 testing and vaccination programs continued to provide testing and contact tracing to the local community and collaborated with local pharmacy to provide over 19,000 vaccinations (2/3 of vaccinations received by vashon residents). This filled significant gaps in local services from government and healthcare providers and reduced barriers to care for underserved residents. Volunteers administered thousands of covid-19 pcr tests, conducted contact tracing and staffed a heavily-used helpline. These programs significantly reduced community incidence of serious illness and deaths.