CASSELBERRY, Fla. – A Casselberry employment and resource center is helping people during the coronavirus pandemic.
Christian Help is an employment and resource center partnered with Second Harvest Food Bank.
The resource center helps folks find jobs and provides a food pantry.
Executive Director Vickie Martin met with the board about keeping the doors open.
“What we all agreed to do was to keep serving and keep helping. We really feel called to do that, that we not only have a mission to fill to prevent homelessness, but a mission on our own lives. So we made sure that one: the staff and the volunteers wanted to continue serving. And then the moment everyone said yes, we’re like okay how are we going to do this?”
Volunteers and staff are wearing gloves and masks. They are also limiting how many guests are in the lobby at a time. Crews are offering hand sanitizer and handing out food from the parking instead of inside the pantry.
Martin said the food pantry already helps hundreds of people per day and even more during this crisis.
She knows how vital it is to keep the resources open to the public.
"Now more than ever is it needed. And again, what we do day in and day out for the last 28 years is to help people be able to stand on their own. Not to be a crutch for them but to really be that surgery center that's really going to help them stitch up their wound and move on, right? So that they don't need us. And now, when people are really in crisis, there's a lot of fear but also supplies and resources are really cut back and in short supply, they need us."
Martin plans to keep the center open in the smartest and safest way possible.
“They’re just glad that we are open, that we care about them to be open, and that we’ve minimized the risk for them as well as ourselves, but have made it a priority to find that compromise that’s good for everybody but still again to deliver services that the community needs.”
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