Caring for Special People -- CSP

This year, we started a program that has already made us so proud of its accomplishments. We recognized that during COVID the focus was usually placed on physical health of people, with mental health and social needs placed at a lower priority. While many teams elected to work on supporting health care workers with PPE, we found a new program that will outlive this horrific pandemic. We have helped provide PPE as needed like many teams, but we decided that developing a program in support of the general population would be an important difference.

​We launched the program in October. Since that is Breast Cancer Awareness and Childhood Cancer Awareness month, we thought we should support the John B. Amos Cancer Center with a donation for survivors. This led to a donation drive that we can continue annually. November, we wanted to support the homeless community and those who are dealing with colder temperatures without family support. This time, we collected food and personal items for the homeless community and donated our proceeds to Feeding the Valley. We thought this was a great way for us to continue reaching special communities in Columbus. December is about family celebrations for most people, and we are all dealing with loneliness this year, so our focus was on Nursing Homes. We know that this community has been hardest hit by the virus and that the warnings to avoid gatherings will impact our long-term care residents even more than most. Selecting a home to provide our donations allowed us to spotlight ways that we can support a community that is part of the Greatest Generation. And, hopefully next year, we’ll be able to expand this program to include visitation to local Nursing Homes.

This is not a Covid program. It might have started that way, because we wanted to do more outreach even during the pandemic, but it’s become so much more. We are already planning our next months’ donations and themes, and we know that this will help people in ways that support their mental and physical health. Hopefully, we will grow this program even more after this pandemic.

We figured a lot of people would want to know our future themes; in case they could help us to support the community.

• January – Health Care (Doctors and Nurses)
• February – Mental Health/Loneliness
• March – Firefighters/Police
• April – Environmental Needs
• May – Teachers/Alumni
• June – Boys/Girls Club (Summer Programs)
• July – Foster Kids

As you can well, we have delineated many parts of our community in support of more than just physical needs. For us it’s about – Caring for Special People (CSP). 

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