The current pandemic has only made it clear that people cannot live in isolation. All over the world, people have realized the value of socialization, nature, and why helping hand is the best way to make everyone’s lives better.
Over the past year, many have lost jobs, family members, and even homes. Many are seeing that it is only by coming together could we rebuild the community and the country. Helping people won’t be easy because of some community restrictions imposed to reduce growing COVID19 infections. Thankfully, there are still some ways to help businesses, individuals, and the community.
Support Local Businesses
Since most jobs can’t be done remotely, many businesses have closed down and forced to lay off their employees. Many are rendered jobless, and to make it worse, they are finding it harder to look for jobs since not all industries are hiring. Most people have started their own home-based business to make ends meet. A way to help entrepreneurs would be to buy and patronize their products, especially if it is something that is sold as an essential. Products like soap, food, or clothing, are things we can surely purchase and even help promote by recommending them to friends and through social media.
Donate
The pandemic has taken everyone by surprise. But some people are more prepared than others, while some were taken aback by the severity and suddenness of the situation. During the earlier days of the pandemic, the priority was to stay safe through isolation. Buying essentials also came in first, but not everyone had the means to purchase everything in a single grocery trip. You could donate to help these people; whether it’s money or food, these donations will greatly help struggling individuals.
Offering aid in the form of money can help households settle bills and buy other supplies not commonly found in relief packs. Donating gadgets, on the other hand, would enable students to continue learning even at home. You can also extend help to front-liners by contributing to their PPE supply, especially now that hospitals and other care institutions are teeming with those in need of medical assistance.
Give Back
Another way to help is by giving back to your community. The best way to stay safe during a pandemic is by self quarantining, but it’s easy to feel lonely, especially in isolation. Through exerting the effort to go on welfare checks or giving your neighbors a ring to see how they’re doing, you can already ease away their quarantine blues by making them feel valued and cherished.
A great idea would be to provide outreach packages, so you can help more people and provide essentials that aren’t normally part of the care packs being distributed by the government. Other simple ways to provide support could be by rendering your skills to those in need. You can give tips on how best to make online purchases, guiding older people on what platforms to use and how to navigate websites so that they can connect with their friends or loved ones, or helping kids be familiar with the software required for their online classes.
Express Your Gratitude
While most of the world’s populace are staying at home to protect themselves against the virus, some essential workers and medical professionals courageously go out every day to provide their services to those in need. Essential workers, like fast-food employees, public transit workers, store clerks, sanitation workers, and police offers, also continuously put themselves at risk.
As a token of appreciation and gratitude, people could simply follow the stay-at-home mandates and physical distancing rules. Following these could do a lot in lessening infection rates and the stress induced in the police, sanitation workers and medical professionals.
People should stay at home to show how thankful they are for these frontliners’ selflessness and hard work, but they could also send wholesome meals or hot drinks when they are on duty. Some celebrities have donated to medical institutions and provided meals and PPEs, but we can further enhance our efforts by trying to make their work easier by following simple health protocols so that we can help reduce the numbers of infected individuals.
Getting through this hard time can’t be done by a single person alone; worldwide effort is needed to win this battle. To show our solidarity to those in the front lines and with the ones working tirelessly to get through every day, we can simply commit acts of kindness and stand by the sides of those in need.
