Mankato, Minnesota (population 40,841), is a regional hub for health care, education, and retail services. The median household income is $45,621 and the median age is 26. The city has won several livability awards and is known for its parks, trails, rivers, and natural beauty.
As the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic caused schools to shift to virtual or hybrid education, Mankato reached out to its nonprofit partners to identify ways they could support their essential employees who could not stay home to care for their young children or supervise their child’s distance learning. One of those nonprofit partners, the Mayo Clinic Health System, was also concerned about how to support its health care workers who faced increasing workloads and stress on the job.
Another nonprofit partner, Minnesota State University, Mankato, had education students who needed to get classroom hours of experience. The local YMCA had substantial experience working with the school district on after-school programs, but was facing significant financial pressures due to the cancellation of in-person programs. After considerable conversation, which influenced initial ideas, the partners came up with several ways to leverage their assets and experience to support their essential employees.
Virtual School Support at the YMCA
The YMCA has existing and new programming, as well as appropriate space to provide learning pods for virtual K-6 school support. Mankato provided a $20,000 CARES Act sustaining grant to the YMCA to offer learning pods staffed by aides who help children with virtual school support during distance learning phases. This provided ongoing support to assure employment for aides despite the ebb and flow of distance learning models, making sure the children log on, check on their list of assignments, and alert the teacher if there is a the need to get back to a child who has questions. Should additional learning pod space be needed, Mankato is prepared to offer its event center.
The YMCA agreed to prioritize enrollment of the children of Tier 1 employees (health workers, public works, police and fire, and utility workers). In the winter months, snowplow drivers are at the top of the list of essential workers. Health workers can’t get to their jobs if the roads are not clear. Another challenge is that most city employees come from dual career households and many are public service couples. That means there is little flexibility at home to support virtual school and childcare needs. Five city employees have expressed interest and more are still able to access the virtual school support program if distance learning persists, with the city contributing 60 percent of the costs and the employee contributing 40 percent of the costs.
Piloting an On-Line Study Center
Mankato partnered with the Mankato Area Public Schools (MAPS), the Greater Mankato United Way, and the Mayo Clinic Health System to provide free on-line tutoring and study help to all MAPS students in grades 6-12. The pilot program costs $13,500 and is funded by an $8,000 CARES Act grant from Mankato, with the remainder provided by the United Way and the Mayo Clinic.
On-Line Tutoring for Employees
After seeing the benefits of an on-line tutoring program for middle and high school students, Mankato purchased 500 hours of tutoring for its employee population. Employees can access the website tutor.com for help in assisting their children in learning, having their own papers reviewed for degree programs, or getting feedback and guidance on how to prepare their self-evaluation for performance reviews.
Montgomery County, Maryland (population 1.05 million), is the most populous county in Maryland and home to the National Institutes of Health and the Walter Reed Medical Center. Topping the list of jobs in the county are professional, scientific, technology, health care, social assistance, and public administration. The median age of residents is 39 and the median household income is $108,188, with 7 percent of residents in poverty. It has a diverse population with 43 percent White, 18 percent Hispanic, 18 percent African American, and 14 percent Asian. Parks are numerous, including Glen Echo Park and portions of Rock Creek Park and the C & O canal.
As summer jobs evaporated for young people in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, Montgomery County established a COVID Corps employment program for youth aged 16-23 years old. The county received over 1,300 applicants in the first week it advertised the program and hired 120 young people to work over the summer, with a few continuing to work in September. They were paid $14 an hour and worked at COVID-19 testing centers, at outdoor swimming pools, and in support of recovery efforts.
Some helped register people for COVID tests, while others delivered meals to older residents. Those working as transit ambassadors for the Montgomery County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) monitored its pilot e-scooter program. They made sure scooters were properly parked in the Silver Spring District and reported their observations of the program back to MCDOT.
Carmen Berrios Martinez, spokesperson for Montgomery County Recreation, observed that the COVID Corps gave opportunities to young people to work over the summer. “As we know, a lot of our young people don’t just earn money for their own spending, but they really help their families with the day-to-day obligations they have,” she said.
Mekdelawit Wilson, a senior at Montgomery Blair High School, said that the experience taught her to be flexible, entering data into a computer one day and meeting with people another day. The job was unlike her previous work as a camp counselor and gave her the opportunity to help her community, rather than just sitting at home.
All participants received training in a variety of subjects, including customer service, resume writing, teamwork, and excellence in the workplace
Adams County, Colorado, is a large urban county located in the Denver/Aurora/Lakewood metropolitan area, with a population of nearly 500,000. The median age is 33, with a median household income of $67,500. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Adams County was the #1 county in the United States for job growth in 2019, in such key industries as aerospace, aviation, bio/life science, and manufacturing.
Putting CARES Act Funding to Work
Due to its population, Adams County has been a direct recipient of CARES Act funding, receiving $90 million. Within five days of receipt, 45% of the allocated funds were distributed to municipalities that were ineligible to receive their own direct funding. Of the $48 million the country retained, $22 million was allocated to the local school districts, $1 million to local fire districts, and $3 million to the public health department for contract tracing and investigation. The remainder of the funds were allocated to the county’s response and recovery needs.
In order to make programmatic decisions regarding COVID-19 response, including utilization of CARES Act funds, the county established seven response and recovery teams focusing on issues ranging from aging adults, business support, childcare, food security and basic essentials, housing stability, unemployment and workforce support, and uninsured and healthcare access. Each team has a chair, a county commissioner who serves as a champion, and is composed of subject matter experts from the community. The county has enlisted the help of Rocky Mountain Partnership to focus on community impact, as decisions about use of CARES Act and other county funding is distributed to meet the needs of the community.
Support to Individuals
Adams County was one of the first jurisdictions to establish an emergency rental and mortgage assistance program, unique in that it allows landlords to apply on behalf of their tenants. The county found that many tenants were not taking advantage of available resources because they were dealing with such barriers as unemployment and mental health issues. The county has spent nearly $2.1 million supporting this program to help more than 12,000 residents stay in their homes. The need for this program exceeds available resources, and there is a backlog of 600+ residents seeking further assistance.
To address social isolation and depression among senior citizens in the community during shelter in place, the county’s aging services response and recovery team created a “Well Elder” program. Each of the county’s 90,000+ senior citizens were contacted by phone to provide social connection and to organize such needed services as food delivery, prescription drug pickup and delivery, pet care, provision of cleaning supplies, and any other services to help them remain safely sheltered. Medical co-pay assistance was also provided to aging adults, enabling them to go to the doctor and retain their Medicare coverage.
The county has also created two funds to help preserve individual economic security: the Low Wage Worker Fund pays lost wages for those low-wage workers who test positive and must quarantine for 14 days; and the Left Behind Worker Fund, which provides $1,000 to those workers whose jobs have been impacted by the pandemic and who do not qualify for state and federal unemployment assistance.
Food Security and Basic Essentials
The county partnered with local school districts to provide meals both to students and to their entire families. One of the county’s eight school districts served an average of 14,000 meals per day under this program.
Business Support
To support local businesses, the county partnered with local chambers of commerce to fund mini grants aimed at helping businesses comply with state public health orders. CARES Act funds in the amount $3 million have been awarded to restaurants in the community to help them transition from the state’s orange alert level to red, which closes indoor dining. Restaurants are being awarded $10,000 each, which will primarily be used to purchase infrastructure for outdoor/patio dining, and to pay for delivery fees from such platforms as GrubHub, Doordash, and UberEats, which are prohibitively expensive for many businesses. The county was also instrumental in enacting a bill to cap delivery fees at 15%. These actions have enabled many restaurants to remain afloat during the cessation of indoor dining.
The county also provided $25,000 bridge loans to small businesses that were applying for SBA loans, carrying them through until the SBA funding was received. This program allowed for the retention and creation of 842 jobs.
Preserving Public Health
The county utilized part of its CARES Act funding to establish six mobile rapid testing sites for the uninsured and homeless populations, providing opportunities to get tested for those who otherwise would have been unable. To protect the homeless population, the county also rented a floor of a hotel, where those who tested positive were provided with food and shelter while quarantining.
