Navigating Transitions With The Help Of Others

Alexander Youth Network features our countless community members who have supported our kids over the past few weeks of uncertainty.

Alexander Youth Network wants to say thank you! Over the past few weeks, we have been amazed by the continued support of our volunteers and donors, in helping provide seamless care to our children and vital safety materials items to our staff.

We have been fortunate to have over 600 face masks, both cloth and disposable, donated by some pretty special folks: Ella Tune (pictured), Beth Jones, Rosanne Brouette, LeighDeux, Mindy Zimmerman, Elevation Church Matthews, and Brenda Palinkas. These masks are key to keeping our staff and children safe and healthy during this difficult time. Doc Porter’s Distillery supplied 15 gallons of hand sanitizer and numerous folks have donated gloves.

Several companies have made our transition to telehealth and telemedicine possible with generous grants to our organization. Special thanks to TIAA, the GEM Foundation, and Foundation For The Carolinas/United Way COVID Response Fund. The financial support of these companies enabled Alexander to purchase additional technology including Chromebooks, internet access, and cellular services for key staff and our families to ensure that children were never without access to treatment and services.

Our office has been overflowing with the incredible response to our need for in-kind items. Our list of individual supporters is too long to list and continually growing but because of them, we have been able to create spring goodie bags for all of our Therapeutic Foster Care families, filled with snacks, activities, and other skill-based crafts. The transition to full-time schooling and remote work has put additional strain on our families including our foster parents. The goodie bags can help alleviate stress for both parents and children with a fun activity or craft. So many of the items on our Amazon Wishlist have been fulfilled that our Volunteer Engagement Officer has had to rebuild the list multiple times. We are so grateful for the generosity of our community in continuing to support the children and families at Alexander Youth Network during this pandemic.

In all of this, we can not forget those who are supporting our kids on a daily basis. Our direct care staff in our residential programs have been flexible and creative in adjusting our daily programming to meet the safety measures in place to reduce the spread of the virus. The incredible generosity of individuals to our Staff Development fund has allowed us to support our staff with essential needs outside of the work they do on campus. We are lucky to have a support network for our children and most importantly our staff, who give so much of their time and energy to care for the kids at Alexander.

The overwhelming support we have received over the past few weeks will make a lasting impact at Alexander. Not only for our children but their families, and the staff at our many (now remote) campuses.

We cannot express our gratitude enough to every volunteer and donor for being an essential member of the Alexander family.

Written by Lynn Crutchfield.