Deborah Daniels: Central Indiana steps up to help during pandemic

I am a glass-half-full kind of person. When others are bemoaning any particular state of affairs, I tend to look for positives.

Given this proclivity on my part, while it is impossible to overstate the myriad negative and often tragic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, I am heartened to see some corresponding positive effects.

Disasters tend to bring out the best in people. Remember how unified we were as a nation in the immediate aftermath of 9/11? I think I see some similarities in our current challenge. We read about how perfect strangers are waving at each other as they pass at a safe distance on the streets, but I’m seeing much more than that happening.

Just a few examples:

As we entered the second week of March, it became clear that what was soon to be declared a global pandemic was going to have a significant impact on Hoosiers. Within the space of a few days, the Central Indiana COVID-19 Community Relief Fund was set up by six local funders, managed by United Way of Central Indiana. (Disclosure: I’m a United Way board member.)

“C-CERF” was one of the very first such community funds set up in the United States in response to the pandemic. The original funders agreed by March 13 to contribute $17.3 million, and the first round of funding was awarded 11 days later. The fund pays for child care for health care workers, food access and disaster funding for the Red Cross and Indiana 211 (the access to help line), and front-line support for the work of community centers in the hardest-hit areas of the six-county United Way of Central Indiana service area.

Even more impressively, others in the community quickly stepped up to contribute, and the fund has grown from the original $17.3 million to nearly $23 million with contributions from individuals and companies throughout the area. More than $200,000 has come from ordinary individuals, bearing their own burdens but quick to see the significant need of those less fortunate.

Another fund was quickly established to help solve the problem of those students who are required to learn remotely for the foreseeable future but do not have access to the technology necessary to access learning plans, instruction and relevant documents.

Within literally two days, the Indianapolis E-Learning Fund was established. A collaboration of nearly 20 funders, including corporate foundations as well as not-for-profit foundations, contributed $2.6 million to initiate the fund, to be administered by the Mayor’s Office of Education Innovation. Leaders in this effort included the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation and The Lilly Foundation.

This, too, will be a nimble process, unencumbered by the slow-moving bureaucracy that often accompanies grantmaking, but with the transparency needed to ensure the funds are well spent.

Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana, already on a path to an ambitious expansion of its food distribution services in the 21 counties it serves, has expanded well beyond its 2020 goals, partnering with a variety of other organizations and changing its distribution model to accommodate the need for social distancing. As CEO John Elliott points out, this has increased Gleaners’ weekly cost nearly 75%.

As that became clear, partners like the Indianapolis Colts, Elanco and the United Way-led community fund stepped up to help, and I have full confidence that good people throughout central Indiana will also step up to help fund this critical need.

A wise person once told me, “We are at our best when serving others.” That has never been more true than now.•

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