Tag Archives: community action

Get tested for COVID-19

If you have yet to be tested for COVID-19, you should make every effort to do so. There are many test sites throughout the United States now offering tests at no cost. The test itself only takes a few seconds. Check out the video to see a mobile test site set up by CORE in action in The Lower East Side to get a sense of what’s involved.

If you’re in New York State, you can find a local test site here.

CORE is also providing free testing at various locales across America.

Check with your local health department for the information most relevant to your area.

I just didn’t feel like it

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything. I haven’t worked on my podcast, or posted a Song of the Day, even though I was fully intending to. I started recording episode 4 of #smileSays, and took a break because I needed to do some fact checking online. This was on late Monday night, May 25 (early Tuesday morning, May 26). When I went online, this was when I learned:

George Floyd was murdered by Derek Chauvin.

Continue reading I just didn’t feel like it

Serving The Lower East Side

Some of you may know that I have been a Team Leader for New York Cares for a while. The last couple of years I’ve been leading projects with seniors and kids. When the pandemic shut everything down earlier in the year, my projects were included in those shut downs. I continued to volunteer from home, making wellness checks on seniors and vulnerable populations via telephone, and providing tech support to students who received iPads from the New York City Department of Education for home schooling. (Full disclosure: I wasn’t actually able to provide tech support to students due to technical issues, but I tried and others did). For the last few weeks, I’ve been leading a project delivering groceries and PPE go bags to tenants at The Vladeck Houses on The Lower East Side.

smile and his Team deliver go-bags and Vladecks’ Residents’ Association President Nancy Ortiz explains the project

If you watched the video, Nancy mentioned that CERT also answered the call, and you saw how we coordinated our efforts nicely. I was invited to tag along and observe a similiar operation that CERT was running on Roosevelt Island this past Saturday. I didn’t take any pictures that day, but others did, so I’ll post pictures here when I get them.