Flatbush Senior Housing Fall Fundraiser for Groceries and PPE

This project began in early April, and nearly every week since, we have delivered masks, gloves, soaps, cleaners and flyers with information about resources to the residents. Soon we were able to increase our support by adding grocery deliveries. We are now supporting 100 elder households with food. Every Saturday we deliver to 25 households, which allows us to reach at least 100 elders every four weeks. 

We need your help in order to continue providing this essential support --weekly visits and deliveries of PPE, cleaning products and food -- through the fall.  

Each week we use a spreadsheet to determine which 25 households are next in line to receive groceries. We have a weekly team phone call to discuss ways to improve and increase our support for the elders.  For our grocery purchasing and packing we work with Brooklyn Packers, a community-run food distribution site in Brownsville, established to respond to growing food insecurity during the pandemic.  We place weekly orders with Brooklyn Packers, which always include a selection of fresh fruits and vegetables as well as meat, milk, bread, eggs, oil and other essentials.

Our fundraising pays for the cost of these groceries.  Every Saturday our team picks up packed grocery bags from B.P. and distributes to senior residents. We also partner with Fou Gallery, which auctions art to benefit the purchase of PPE for the local community.  They have  provided us with most of the PPE for the seniors and their caregivers.  We have also been working with translators to ensure language access, especially important for the many Cantonese speakers.

In addition, we disseminate information about available resources. We talk to the elders and work to build connection and trust. 

This all began in early April a resident of Kings County Senior Center called a local mutual aid group expressing grave concern for the safety of people in her building. This resident told us that she and her neighbors did not have access to any resources to keep them safe-- basic information about COVID, cleaning supplies or PPE.  She told us that many of the residents had lost their care workers. 

A few members from the Caring Majority came together for a phone meeting to figure out how we could respond. As a first step, we decided to pay a visit to the building, which is publicly subsidized and privately managed.  When we entered the building, we noticed right away that the walls and elevators were plastered with information, in multiple languages,  about how to pay your rent, along with a few scattered flyers about the “China Virus.”  There was no information on actual resources to support the elder residents during the pandemic. 

Since then, we have made weekly visits to the building to provide support to the residents and care providers.  We distribute N95s protective masks to care providers each week, knowing that the nature of their work puts them at great risk  for COVID and that they often travel between facilities working with elders, increasing the risk of spread.  

Our hope is to reduce the death toll, break isolation and build connection and trust with the residents and care providers.  We understand that the health and wellbeing of the residents and care workers are intertwined.  We have come bearing  the message that  “you are essential to us, ” writing it  in sidewalk chalk, on posters and flyers and bringing flowers with this same message on Mother’s Day. We understand that elders and care workers were devalued long before COVID-19.  Now that neglect and lack of care has resulted in disproportionate and unnecessary deaths in these communities.  The residents and care workers at Kings County Senior Apartments are especially vulnerable because of their age, but also because they are low-income people of color, including many immigrants.   All these factors increase the likelihood of dying from COVID.

We are committed to this work because we believe that we all need each other to survive and to thrive.  We believe in the importance of care and community. And we believe that the elders and the workers who care for them are valuable and vital  to the health of our community. We want them not only to survive but to thrive.