Deerfield Community Center volunteers (from left) Russ Peacock, Greg Frutiger and Phil Montalto recently help pack food pantry Christmas baskets.Karyn Saemann
A deepening web of Covid-19 stressors may now be tipping more people toward mental health crisis, say local organizations that offer help with everyday needs and local counselors whose job is to assess how weâre doing psychologically.
As 2020 ends, financial ruin is everywhere: job losses, surging reliance on food pantries and meal sites, housing loss, business failures and mounting unpaid utility, medical and other bills.
People remain isolated. Many are grieving. Others are angry about the national election, still reeling from summer racial equity protests, and devastated by the cancellation of travel and holiday celebrations.
âCrisis has improved the systemâ
Pantries improve food delivery procedures in responding to COVID
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Even curbside pickup can be treacherous in bad weather. Badger Prairie Needs Network has added a new overhang and windbreak for its food pantry pickup.
Marcia Kasieta never thought the disruption in her agencyâs food delivery services would go on this long. Kasieta, as executive director of Badger Prairie Needs Network, runs a food pantry and a community meal program in Verona. From the run on grocery stores early on, to limits on the number of volunteers in their building, COVID-19 has had a âhuge impact.â But coping with the pandemic has forced her agency to try things it wouldnât otherwise have found the time, or the nerve, to do, Kasieta says, and because of that its food delivery systems have âbecome more efficient.â