Putting the Social in Social Distancing

Look, we’re going to have some fun with this post, but let’s be real for a second. Social distancing is critical at keeping our community and those most vulnerable safe. Avoid leaving the house, definitely avoid groups large than 10, keep a safe 6’ away from folks if you do have to venture out, and if you must Beltline, please don’t walk in herds and try hopping over to the southside or westside trail for some solo adventuring. The Eastside Trail is nobody’s friend right now.

We all know Facetime is great, especially during group chats when you’re all koala’s. Facebook and Instagram Live are also good ways to kill a few hours with friends and strangers. Google Hangouts are a fun way to connect with friends and fam too.

To keep things fresh, we went exploring to find some other things you can do to stay social while keeping your distance. Here are a few fun apps and things to try to keep the good times rollin’.

House Party

Not your mom’s Facetime. House Party is a group video chat app with integrated games like Heads Up, Pictionary, trivia, and a “Cards Against Humanity” look-a-like called Chips and Guac. It’s fun, perfect for happy hour hangs.

Zoom

While you’ve surely been using Zoom all day for work calls and to connect with your teams, don’t forget to have some fun with it. Play with the virtual background and chat room settings. Since everyone has now graduated Zoom University, there’s no “how does this thing work” and you can get straight to catching up with a sure bet, quality stream.

Stream Live Concerts

Yes, it’s awful and not fair that the spring festival season has been cancelled and every show you wanted to catch has been postponed. Lucky for you, Billboard released this awesome (updated daily) list of concerts you can stream. Plus, a bunch of musicians are getting in on the action, like Jack White’s Third Man Records, performing live shows everyday at noon!

Volunteer from Your Couch

We recently launched some really fun and easy ways you can help those in need, without leaving the house. Volunteering is a perfect cure to help stay social because it almost always involves people helping people, in real-time. Take Be My Eyes or Tarjimly for example, you can see for the visually impaired or translate for those who need language support via live chats.

Play Video Games

Spoken like a true gaming novice, if you have Xbox Live or Nintendo Switch, you can play with friends, make new friends, and probably shoot some cartoon bad guys or leave a banana on the road for Mario to wipe out on.

Join a Virtual Gym and Workout from Home

Working out or going for a run is a great way to shake the stress of quarantining, but doing it alone? Boring. Get swol with strangers and coaches using apps like Nike’s Run Club, Aaptiv, or Peloton Digital (free for 3 months).

Host a virtual Civic Dinner

Dinner dates are great. Dinner dates that bring friends together to raise awareness to serious community challenges and talk through potential solutions? That’s a Civic Dinner date. Put yours on their calendar, invite your friends and grab your iPad or laptop for a meaningful, fun conversation.

Netflix Party

Netflix Party is a new way to watch Netflix with your friends online. Netflix Party synchronizes video playback and adds group chat to your favorite Netflix shows. Try it out tonight!

That’s it. That’s our list of ways to stay social while social distancing. We’ll see you (through a screen) out there. What are you doing to stay social while social distancing? Let us know in the comments and we’ll share our favorites on our Facebook page.

PREVENTING A DOUBLE RECESSION FOR NONPROFITS: 5 THINGS YOU CAN DO TO MEET URGENT NEEDS

This is an excerpt from Points of Light CEO, Natalye Paquin

Driven by a desire to lend a helping hand, the “hands-on” world of volunteer service connects people to help each other meet community challenges. These on-the-ground organizations are powered by people, comprised of community leaders who know the specific needs and strengths of their community.

But in this new “hands-off” world of social distancing, volunteering in person has come to an abrupt halt.

With COVID-19, nonprofits are facing unprecedented headwinds. Not only are funds constricting quickly and dramatically, but now the volunteers that organizations rely on cannot perform many critical functions, while the needs of their populations they serve grow each day of this crisis.

Keep reading on Points of Light —>

Hands On ATLANTA | COVID-19 COMMUNITY PLAN

Updated March 25, 2020 at 7:00am

Like many organizations across metro Atlanta, we are closely monitoring the COVID-19 news and updates from the CDC and the World Health Organization. In an effort to be proactive, prioritizing the health and safety of our staff and our community, we have put together the following continuity plan.

Until further notice, we are following guidance from the State of Georgia and Atlanta’s Mayor Bottoms, and are postponing all “non-essential” volunteer projects. We will remain focused on fighting food insecurity and supporting essential nonprofit organizations and community needs. We’re also requesting all nonprofit partners and volunteer projects adhere to safety guidelines requiring a minimum of 6 ft distance between volunteers and projects less than 10 people. We’re working hard to ensure our calendar of volunteer projects and internal programs are updated accordingly and following these new safety guidelines.

A summary of our response and current activities is below.  We'll provide further updates as things evolve, but in the meantime, thanks for doing your part to ensure the safety and well-being of you and those around you!   

our internal plan

This kind of pandemic planning is new for everyone, especially us. However, we’re lucky to have the support of our fellow Points of Light Global Network Affiliates and have leaned on what others are doing across the globe to deal with the crisis. We are sharing our internal game plan, as it might be helpful for you or your organization. Our friends at the Georgia Center for Nonprofits have also created a contingency plan template. Until further notice we have:

• Closed our office from Monday, March 16 - 27. This will cancel any volunteer projects and events happening at our office location (600 Means St.) within that timeline.

• Created an internal response team to plan and implement the necessary actions for our team and greater community of partners and volunteers

• Suspended all nonessential travel outside of GA. 

• Reinforced our flexible work from home policy to accommodate staff during the time our office will be closed. 

• Asked that anyone on our team who has a fever and/or symptoms of acute respiratory illness must stay home and not come to work until they are free of fever (e.g. 100F or lower) or any other symptoms for at least 24-hours, without the use a fever-reducing or other symptom-altering medicine (e.g. cough suppressants).   

• Asked teammates if a family member is sick with an acute respiratory illness, the employee may not return to work until 14 days after the family member became symptomatic.   

• A mandatory 14-day quarantine for all staff if in the event someone at Hands On ATL tests positive for COVID-19/Coronavirus.

Our Community Plan

We are working on contingency plans with all of our partners to keep the community’s best interest first. We have:

• Created a Community Relief landing page with available volunteer opportunities, resources for those in need and more.

• Postponed our Discovery and TeamWorks! programs until further notice

• Posted all activity within the Civic Leadership Program

• Sent safety guidelines and restrictions to Starbucks Service Fellows projects - focused on food insecurity - and are updating our calendar accordingly

• Host Talk With Me Baby @ Work sessions digitally. To sign up for these email abisgaard@handsonatlanta.org

• Asked volunteers (or volunteer family members) that have been exposed to COVID-19 self-quarantine and NOT volunteer with us for at least 14-days. 

• Been listening carefully to our nonprofit and school partners, and promoting their urgent needs on our calendar and via our social media, in addition to our Relief landing page.

If any of the following conditions apply to you, we ask that you not sign-up for any project at a Community/Nonprofit Partner location and stay at home for the safety of everyone:

1. If you currently have a cough, fever, or any respiratory illness

2. If you currently have a heart condition, lung disease, diabetes, or any other serious health condition, or are over the age of 65

3. If you or anyone in your household have traveled to China, Iran, South Korea, Japan, or Europe in the past two weeks

4. If you or anyone in your household have been in close contact with anyone who is confirmed to have COVID-19

If none of conditions 1-4 apply to you and you are comfortable volunteering, you may sign up for a project.

Before you begin a project, we’ll ask that you wash your hands thoroughly for 20 seconds with soap and water or use an alcohol-based sanitizer. Supplies are limited for sanitizer, gloves and masks, please bring your own to projects if possible.

If you must stay home for the safety of our community, we have remote/digital volunteer opportunities (see Volunteer From Home below) that you may sign-up for.

VOLUNTEER FROM HOME

Here are some really easy ways you can do something good, without leaving your house:

• Answer college and career readiness questions from students using CareerVillage

• Make the world more accessible for the visually impaired and download Be My Eyes

• Give refugees and people in need of humanitarian assistance on-demand language access with Tarjimly

• Connect low-income youth with live academic support to help them on their path to achieving upward mobility with UPchieve.

Keep an eye on this page (it will be updated regularly) for news, updates and changes in our plan based on recommendations from the CDC and our community partners. Thank you for helping us tackle Atlanta’s most pressing needs!

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Please share what you or your organization is doing to keep our community safe from COVID-19 in the comments below.