COVID Conversations

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According to the New York Times, many people utilize food banks for the first time during the COVID-19 pandemic. Food bank distribution was approximately 50% higher in 2020 compared with 2019. Hello and welcome to COVID Conversations, an introspective of the impact on nonprofits. My name is Leah. In today's episode, we'll learn more about two nonprofit organizations in Nevada, the Just One Project and the City Impact Center. The Just One Project began in 2014 with a mission to mobilize volunteers to build a stronger and healthier community in Southern Nevada. The organization connects hundreds of people to volunteer opportunities each month. The Just One Project has been one of the fastest growing nonprofits in our area. I had a conversation with Cynthia Lewis to learn more about how COVID-19 has impacted this organization. Cynthia this organization. Cynthia and I talked about how the nonprofit started.

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So we would just get together and eat out and kind of make it happen. So we were serving this one area of town for a while. It was called Clifton Manor. It's down on Boulder Highway. So we would just kind of do these, we would just kind of show up and host these little events. And we kind of coined the phrase, pop-up, because we just kind of popped up into that neighborhood. So we popped up monthly into that neighborhood for about nine to ten months. And she loves social media and videos and pictures, so she's always reporting. And one of her videos went viral, and Del Monte somehow caught wind of the video, and we got a call, and they said, hey, we've got 25,000 pounds of fresh produce.

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Would you be interested in it?

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We were like, absolutely. And so they're like, okay, well, it's in California and you have to get it by tomorrow. So we called up some friends in the trucking industry and we had a friend said, no problem. I got this. So he brought, he was able to bring me fruit here and we went back to Sports Banner and we were serving it. And it was absolutely incredible to watch all these kiddos, you know, having mangoes and Kiwis for the first time in their lives, because these are just, you know, fruits and veggies that aren't very common in low-cost, you know, people's heads. And they're kind of pricey. And so again, with the videos, Greysquare saw that video. And I guess because technically now that, you know, I know the terminology, that was food distribution. So they saw what we were doing, and they wanted to come and chat. So we sat down with them. And we then saw the need for direct access to food. So, Las Vegas is known as a food desert. There's a ton of zip codes that are food deserts. And that just means that in that area, there are no, like, grocery stores. So, there might be a Dollar General. You might see a 7-Eleven. But there are no real grocery stores. You know, back in the day, they had strip malls. They had huge, you know, Albertsons, Nets and all that, but as the economy has gone down, you know, they've moved out. And so, the food insecurity rate here in Las Vegas is pretty high, and especially for seniors and for children. And so, we kind of saw that and decided organically that that's what we wanted to do, is step up for our community. And so naturally, we have grown to be a three-quarter large agency partner with what we're doing. So our first grant, we got a brick and mortar on Western and Oakney and opened our doors. And that was for serving seniors, because nobody was doing that. Now seniors are 10th in the nation for food insecurity here in Nevada. So we opened up our food pantry and we just wanted to serve with dignity and respect. That's kind of like our big thing. So that's what we started doing. And then we created our pop-up program. So our pop-up program is where we go directly into the communities and the global market. So we go up and we are partnered with CTSC schools. So currently we have 12 locations. They're all on school campuses across the valley. One Saturday a month, it's the third Saturday of every month, we get together and it's three hours. Like this past Saturday, for example, three hours with about 350 volunteers, we served over 17,000 pounds of food. Like the mission of our organization is to connect people with volunteer opportunities. So, just kind of spinning it back to how we got started, we knew that people wanted to help and make their community better, but they needed a place to go to help. So, we created our marketplace and our pop-up event that pulls as places where people can come volunteer and then it just so happens that they're distributing food because of our food insecurity issues here in Las Vegas.

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Cynthia and I talked about how COVID-19 has affected the operation.

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So with the onset of COVID, we were just moving locations. So we were from our first location to another. We had big plans to make a super cute community market for our seniors. They can come in and go shopping. That was halted because we couldn't have anyone coming in. So we were able to do that aspect of it. But luckily our new building has this huge parking lot in the back that we were able to shift gears and do drive up service. So our clients are able to call, schedule their appointment, they pull forward and they get loaded up with fresh groceries by our volunteers. Again, with COVID came the Cures Grant. So where a lot of other businesses had to shut down, we actually were essential. So we were able to continue working, but not only that, we kicked major booties. So with COVID, our food insecurity rate jumped, I mean, basically overnight by 7.8%. And so we got a CARES grant and we were able to employ 36 additional staff members for the last quarter of 2020. So it was October, November, December. And we were able to serve 5.5 million pounds of food last year. We got 16 vans, and we had these deliveries going out. And then we started a home delivery program for our seniors because we wanted to keep them safe. That's still ongoing. We will always have our senior delivery program because there's a lot of seniors who can't come down to us to get their groceries. So we're bringing it to them. So whether they're medically fragile, or they just don't drive anymore, or we want to keep them in because of COVID, we deliver to them. So we totally ramped up what we have been doing because of COVID. We definitely got, you know, it's kind of like our time to shine is to show what we can do.

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We discussed how COVID-19 has shifted the operating model.

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Actually during COVID, normally we have 12 locations. We were able to have 20 different locations the last quarter of last year.

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Cynthia spoke about the impact felt here in Las Vegas.

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Yeah, I mean Las Vegas is huge. The entertainment industry, the restaurants, all that. With them being closed for so long, a lot of our people need our help. And so we've been able to step up and serve them. And so now, I mean, we know what we're doing. And so we do it so easily because we're very streamlined. We've, I think, perfected what we do.

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When I asked her if people have utilized food pantries for the first time during the pandemic.

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Absolutely. When they call to get scheduled in, our receptionists, our appointment schedulers, they're the first person that these people are talking to. We, I know I mentioned before, we serve everyone with dignity and respect. So we're very friendly. A lot of people, when they call, you can hear, you know, they're a little timid. They're kind of scared. They don't know. Some of them share their stories with us. A lot of them are adherent. They're like, hey, it's all good. Like, we want to live that for them. We want to make it an amazing experience. We've got, you know, we have a great space. We're going to come in. We've got great staff, we're all friendly, we're super helpful, because we've noticed that a lot of other organizations and agencies, they make it so hard for people to get resources. And it's like, it's their job, but they, you know, it's crazy. So we just wanted to flip that script. So we're very friendly, very open, and yeah, a lot of people start out like, Hi, what do I do? I've never done this before. We just pop up to your office. We're just making some scheduler appointments. We tell them that they can come see us once a month at house, and they can also come see us at our pop-up events on the weekends, and we make it super, super full on fun.

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I asked Cynthia how individuals are referred to the Just One Project.

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project? These days a lot of it is social media. So Facebook, Instagram, and then word of mouth networking is always the best. So when somebody, you know, hears about us, they tell their friends, we tell their friends, or their family. We've got some corporate community partners that sponsor different locations. So they will advertise to their clients, whatever. You know, we're lucky enough to be on the news, or we were chosen to be the charity of the year for the 2011-2012. So we're lucky enough to be on the news. We're lucky enough to be on the news. We're lucky enough to be on the news. We're lucky enough to be on the news. We're lucky enough to be on the news. We're lucky enough to be on the news. We're lucky enough to be on the news. We're lucky enough to be on the news. We're lucky enough to be on the news. We're lucky enough to be on the news.

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We're lucky enough to be on the news.

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We're lucky enough to be on the news. We're lucky enough to be on the news. We're lucky enough to be on the news. We're lucky enough to be on the news.

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We're lucky enough to be on the news.

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We're lucky enough to be on the news. We're lucky enough to be on the news. We're lucky enough to be on the news. We're lucky enough to be on the news. Or we were chosen to be the charity of the year for the Miracle Mile shop. So we've got some advertising going on. All the change to get thrown into their fountain this year, all that change will go to us. And so we'll put all those monies right back into our programming. 92% of all funds that we raise go into our program.

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So that's a huge chunk.

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I mean, we definitely are here for the right reasons, doing the right thing. We appreciate Cynthia with the Just One Project joining us today. If you'd like to get involved with the Just One Project, please visit their website at thejustoneproject.org or call 702-462-2253. Since 2008, the City Impact Center's mission is to impact communities by providing on-site access to programs, education, housing, and wellness organizations that ensure citizens young and old can live productive, healthy, and whole lives. City Impact Urban Food Bank is a full-service food bank providing packaged foods, fresh produce, meat and dairy products, as well as prepared meals. I had a conversation with Vic Caruso, Executive Director, to learn more about how COVID-19 has impacted this organization.

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In fact, we're in the heart of Las Vegas, on Sahara, right off, right down the street from Las Vegas strip, five blocks, and we have been there for 12 years. We've actually been on the campus for 30 years. I was in a high school once before and some other things that, on account of the first crisis, the financial crisis in 2009 and 10, we had a private Christian high school there that went under and the whole neighborhood kind of tanked. And we had all these buildings and all these square footage and so we decided the church that actually owns it decided to go ahead and use the buildings to serve the underserved, because this is the oldest part of the city, right here in Los Angeles. It's just not far from where you guys at UNLV are. So we began to use all, we had a large gymnasium and everything, so skip ahead 12 years later, we have 14 different partners. What we do, we collaborate with other people in the city that are already doing things and let them come on our campus and most of the time there's no rental charge or anything for them, providing that they give their services away. So we have a charter school from Clark County School District with 350 students. They were at risk at one time. Now we have 100% graduation. We also partner with College of Southern Nevada for night school. We're averaging about 300 students a year, three times a year doing 10-week semesters of English as a second language and also high school equivalency. And also we have Opportunity Village on the campus and you're aware what they do, helping severe challenged people be able to work in the community. And then we have Head Start on the campus as well. We have a medical clinic. We have food bank. That's one of the busiest food banks in town right now. And then we have, we're just putting in adult daycare, we have after school program, we have, we just built, with the help of the city, 68 units of low-income senior housing. We have computer classes and different things like that. And so those are all the things that we're doing. They're all privately funded through hotels, MGM, Circus Circus, Caesars Palace, and what have you, and businesses here in the city.

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Vic and I talked about how COVID-19 has affected the operation. It's affected us tremendously. Of course,

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we don't have the night school right now because College of Southern Nevada doesn't have the ability to have any people in classrooms. Our charter school is online like all of Clark County charter schools are and it's hurting our kids very much because we're the hungriest zip code in Las Vegas. And so our kids would, like a lot of the kids in Clark County, but they took extra advantage of our before school program, lunch, and then after school. And then we have the three square backpack program too. And so we're still doing that the best we can with three square and Clark County. And then also a number of the kids came to our after-school program because a lot of them live in that, it's a rough neighborhood around here, drug-infested, crime-infested, single-parent homes and things. And we are unable to pick them up every day and meet with them and help them and just give them the support that they need. The custom meals and the activities and things like that. And so those are all closed. Our medical clinic is still open on a limited basis to the uninsured. And our food bank, there was 140 food banks in Las Vegas in March when this whole thing hit and now there's 10 and there's only two that have walk-in services. And we're one of them. We're close to a three square. And so we've gone from serving 100 families a day to over 300 families a day. So we're doing everything in a different way, a lot more following all the regulations and the codes of social distancing and all that, you know, and the mask and all that stuff. But it's affected our people tremendously, but we're doing well, we're getting through it, but it's really changed everything. I can ask for you and everybody else, I'm sure.

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I asked Nick about any budget cuts to the organization.

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If anything else, people have helped us. They've stepped up to the plate and have helped us because they see what we're doing. And so we haven't had any budget. No, we've been real fortunate. We were able to get the first wave of the PPP funds. And like I said, we're privately funded. So no, we've been very fortunate.

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Vic discussed some partners who helped keep the nonprofit operational.

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So we partner very close with the City of Las Vegas, the Mayor's Initiative, we work with Metropolitan Police Department, and then local businesses, and then people of faith. And so, that's the three-braided cord that we kind of banner that gives us the strength to do what we do. The top challenge right now is being able to keep people fed, of course, and we're doing okay on that. The other thing is that we're really, where we feel it the most is not being able to help the neighborhood kids with any after-school mentoring programs and homework programs and we would take them to different places on weekends and do things. I think that would be the area that is suffering the most because a lot of the kids are from single-family homes and they don't have any extra activities because their parents are struggling before, they're really struggling now. And so that's one of our biggest challenges. And the other big challenge is transportation. So many of the people, we were very fortunate. We had three bus stops within less than a quarter of a mile. So we're a bus stop rich environment. But more and more people are losing their cars because of the financial problem, not the unloaded bills. And the other thing is the home insecurity, shelter insecurity. So many of our people and the other thing we're seeing, we're seeing a lot of people like my wife and I as an example, people that worked all their life, had two jobs, two insurance plans and everything and now they've lost their jobs, they've burned through their savings and for the first time you're finding yourself using services like ours and you know it's difficult so one of our biggest challenges is helping people be able to get back and forth with their groceries and be able to come to campus.

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We appreciate Vic and the City Impact Center joining us today. If you'd like to get involved with the City Impact Center, please visit their website at CICNV.org or call 702-888-4242. As we continue to learn how nonprofits have been impacted, we certainly wish them much success in the months and years ahead. Thank you for listening to COVID Conversations, an introspective of the impact on nonprofits. In our next episode, you'll hear from Southern Nevada Chips. It's sure to be another enlightening conversation. Until next In our next episode, you'll hear from Southern Nevada Chips. It's sure to be another enlightening conversation. Until next time, and thank you again for listening.