To All SEAMAAC Friends and Supporters:
As you may already know, due to the COVID19 pandemic, SEAMAAC had to make the difficult decision to temporarily halt one of our most vibrant programs - The Roots of Happiness Program which has been serving linguistic and socially isolated Asian Elders in Philadelphia since 2007. The 250+ elders that we serve in our weekly program and ongoing case management are not served by any other agency due to their social and linguistic isolation, thus making SEAMAAC’s Roots of Happiness Program the only point of service that are available and accessible to them for fellowship, in-language health information, trainings, and social gathering. As you can imagine, the temporary stoppage in programming will create a situation where these elders will be unable to get reliable in-language information, case management, congregant meals and fellowship.
Furthermore, because our elders represent the demographics with the highest risk to COVID19, we feel we must do more than just temporarily cancel the program. To prevent their further isolation, SEAMAAC hopes to roll out a robust set of remote service to ensure that these elders remain healthy, safe and well-informed by doing the following:
- Make weekly or bi-weekly delivery of fresh produce and culturally appropriate food staples
- Make 2-3 calls per week to ensure that the Elders remain healthy, have the necessary medication/prescription, and are getting medical attention if needed.
- Deliver reliable in-language health information regarding COVID-19 – SEAMAAC will compile reliable information and translate them into the necessary languages to be delivered.
To this end, we hope our supporters can take part in one or more of the following:
- Donate to the Roots of Happiness Program, so that SEAMAAC can purchase necessary items to be delivered to the homes of the elders.
- Volunteer your time/vehicle to help pick-up, package, and deliver groceries, prescription and other essential items as needed. (Please email Katie Pfeil [email protected]/or Thi Lam tla[email protected] your contact information and availability)
- Volunteer your time and linguistic skills to make check-in calls to the elders 2-3 times per week. Current languages needed are Bhutanese (Nepali) , Mandarin Chinese, Khmer, Lao and Vietnamese. (Please email Katie Pfeil [email protected] or Thi Lam [email protected] with your contact information, language capabilities, and availability)
SEAMAAC is hoping to raise approximately $24,000 over the next four weeks, as we anticipate spending $6,000 per week to purchase essential food and supplies for delivery two times per week: this breaks down to about $20 per grocery box. 100% of your contribution will go directly to benefit the Elders and other vulnerable clients and as an example of what your contribution will support:
$20 supports 1 grocery box delivery to a refugee elder
$60 supports 3 grocery boxes deliveries to 3 refugee elders
$100 supports 5 grocery boxes deliveries to 5 refugee elders
SEAMAAC has already released emergency funding to cover the first week, but we will need your support to sustain these efforts.
Thank you in advance for your support,
Thoai Nguyen, CEO
