The Daily Messenger 5/31/2020
Meg LaDouce Reed Guest Essay: Fund assists our neighbors in need
Back in the 1930s, when the entire world was mired in the Great Depression, hobos crisscrossed the country on freight trains in the hope of finding work, any work at all. These were men who’d had jobs, who’d been supporting themselves and their families, who’d had a home, maybe a car, and certainly food. They formed an ad hoc kind of community, leaving helpful messages to those who wandered through a place after them, using an alphabet of simple drawings to warn of danger (“Vicious Dog Here”), to give helpful advice (“Good Place to Catch a Train”), to let others know where to go for free medical care, a bed in a hayloft, a free telephone. One of the happiest symbols was the cat, which said “Kind Lady Lives Here.” My mother’s childhood home in Auburn had the Kind Lady Cat scratched onto the front sidewalk in chalk or coal many times during the ‘30s, letting hobos know that my grandmother would give them a meal and maybe pay them for a small job.
Until a couple of months ago, the era of my grandmother and the Kind Lady Cat, of long soup lines and hobos hopping freight trains, seemed a fragment of a bygone world. Then, the global pandemic grabbed the world by the throat and, practically overnight, threw us headlong into a sort of dystopian landscape of shuttered businesses and lost jobs.
When I first started writing this on May 8, the unemployment rate had soared in April to 14.7%, the highest level since the Great Depression. More than 23 million Americans were out of work. This week, 10 weeks since the pandemic caused a “pause” in our lives, the latest count of workers seeking unemployment assistance passed the 40 million mark.
Here in Ontario County, we are no more immune to the crushing economic blows than we are to the coronavirus itself. And, just as our ability to survive an infection often depends on our overall physical health, our ability to weather the loss of a job depends on our economic health.
Last October, The Daily Messenger reported on a roundtable discussion hosted by Wood Library at which Kari Buch, the executive director of United Way of Ontario County, presented the findings of a United Way study called ALICE (for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed). The 2016 ALICE study found that 28% of households in the county who were earning incomes that put them above the federal poverty level still could not afford the basic necessities of housing, food, healthcare, childcare and transportation. When combined with the number of families living in poverty, 34% of households in the county struggled to afford these basic necessities. In Canandaigua, the ALICE statistics were even more grim, with 51% of households unable to make ends meet.
I use the past tense deliberately here. We know, at a gut level, without needing to cite hard data, that those numbers for Ontario County, and for Canandaigua, have shot up over the last month. We know this because so many of the jobs that ALICE workers held are the low-wage jobs that have been lost because of the pandemic: teachers’ aides, school bus drivers, restaurant and hotel workers, landscapers, to name but a very few. And let’s not forget about those who lost jobs that had provided a higher-than-ALICE income, who now have no money coming in.
I’ve lived in Canandaigua for more than 30 years now. And one of the delightful, comforting traits of this community is its willingness to embrace and assist those who need a helping hand. We are blessed with organizations – mostly staffed by volunteers – that provide the basic necessities to people in need, whether it is a box of food, a gas card, medications, rental assistance, a car repair, or any number of other needs.
On Easter Sunday, the Daily Messenger published a letter to the editor from Joe Nacca, who noted that “The primary purpose of (the CARES Act) checks is to serve as an emergency monetary lifeline to those who are sinking. Thankfully, not everyone is sinking.” Mr. Nacca suggested a way for those who are not “sinking” to help those who are: “transfer their CARES checks, either entirely or in part, to a fund which will be used to support our neediest neighbors.” He pictured “neighbors working hand in hand to help each other in a community-wide effort.”
Many decades ago, Canandaigua had just such a fund. It was called Neighbor to Neighbor, and it was set up by George Ewing, the former editor and publisher of the Daily Messenger, to provide one-time emergency assistance to people in the community. After the Ewing family sold the newspaper, the Neighbor to Neighbor fund was eventually dissolved.
Mr. Nacca, you planted a seed in fertile soil!
The Neighbor to Neighbor Fund has been resurrected under the umbrella of the Finger Lakes Area Community Endowment (FLACE) at Canandaigua National Bank. The six members of the steering committee (Steve Martin, Laurie O’Shaughnessy, Ellen Polimeni, Cindy Vanderlee, Bob Zimmerman, and myself) have talked with people representing many of the service organizations working here in Canandaigua, and together we’ve identified many needs that our neighbors have today. Neighbor to Neighbor funds will be given directly to the agencies to help them address the needs that are now overwhelming their resources. The money will be targeted specifically to the City and Town of Canandaigua, freeing the agencies’ funds to help our Ontario County neighbors beyond Canandaigua.
We’re delighted to tell you that we already have over $42,000 pledged to Neighbor to Neighbor by several anonymous donors. That money will fly out the door. Please give what you can, either to the Neighbor to Neighbor fund at FLACE (cnbank.com/FLACE or Neighbor to Neighbor Fund, P.O. Box 756, Canandaigua) or directly to one of our partner organizations that provide emergency relief and assistance (Canandaigua Churches in Action, Catholic Charities of the Finger Lakes, Family Promise of Ontario County, Gleaners Community Kitchen, Habitat for Humanity of Ontario County, Partnership for Ontario County, the Salvation Army, St. Vincent de Paul Society, Wood Library, YMCA-Canandaigua).
And if you or someone you know needs emergency assistance, know that your community is ready to help you. We really are all in this together. Always.