Linda Soloman shares an update about our club's volunteer efforts related to COVID-19.
In March 2020, when the metropolitan area and the nation overall executed unprecedented measures to combat COVID-19, our Rotary District and Club took action to support our local community. President Lynn responded immediately to District 7620’s request for each club to provide a COVID-19 point of contact. Linda Solomon became our Club’s point of contact. Once Linda’s supply chain experience became known among task force members, she was asked to become a Logistics Coordinator for District 7620’s COVID-19 Community Response volunteer effort.
This new volunteer effort provided grocery shopping and medicine pick-up and delivery services to elderly and immune compromised citizens in our community. The effort was especially crucial during the months of April through June 2020 when online grocery ordering proved to be difficult. Several members from our Club served as grocery and medicine delivery volunteers, including Arthur Landwehr, Sarah Ross, and Khaled Sabah. Tine Hasling Rasmussen, a DC Rotaract member, worked directly with Linda as the Deputy DC Logistics Coordinator.
To date, District 7620 has responded with volunteer services to over 200 hotline calls. In Washington, DC, our club with the help of many volunteers, has successfully delivered over 85 grocery and medicine orders for elderly and immune-compromised citizens living in DC. We hope our services are not needed again, but if the city shuts down and grocery/pharmacy online ordering becomes difficult again, Rotary has the processes, online software, and volunteers to provide crucial services to our local citizens!