Jubilee Home Friends and Partners,
Just wanted to send a quick update on Jubilee Home and COVID-19. We, like everyone else, are left in suspense for the next while as we try to understand how to walk the fine line of serving our immediate community in the house and neighborhood, and our broader community that is working to flatten the curve of COVID-19 cases.
Our house is still open for residents, and will remain open, even for any new arrivals. This does carry a small risk of spread among residents and staff, but we are a small community and the need for housing didn’t disappear when the virus came to town! We will continue to take every precaution to insure our facility is clean, and protect our residents and staff further by limiting visits and guests.
To that end, any activities planned for the house in the coming weeks will be canceled. The only exception is small groups coming to feed neighbors. Neighbors still need food. And people without kitchens to cook in, or cars to drive thru with are acutely impacted by the closing of restaurants. Our Dawkins Street community already exists in a food desert, but even the few dining options that exist around here are closing quickly. So we still need groups willing to serve to come and do so (or donate food, paper goods, or money to fund meals if you cannot be out right now). We ask that groups limit the number of people that come to serve to no more than 5, and that high risk members of the community do not participate. I will make sure everything that is needed is outside and we will serve without entering the house.
It is a hard thing to know how to follow Jesus in these times. Jesus never allowed personal safety to stand in the way of serving someone in need, but I also don’t see any accounts of a pandemic in the Gospels. Social distancing is serving others right now. But we must remember those who do not have the choice to distance. Those whose limited access to food is dwindling. Those who have no mail box to receive any sort of check from the government. Help us stand with our neighbors in a time when most everyone else needs to stay away. Please contact me or a board member if you are interested in helping in any way. If you are able to give to this effort digitally via venmo (@JubileeHomeNc) or through our website www.jubilee-home.org, just leave a memo noting funds are for “neighbors.”
Thank you for joining us on this journey…even when it feels like we’re journeying through a swamp…on a very foggy day…without our glasses. At least we don’t journey alone!