August 17, 2020

Sandi Rowland:
Hello, I’m Sandi Rowland, Executive Director at Sullivan 180. Welcome to “Sullivan 180 Presents… Take Five!” At Sullivan 180, our mission is to build a healthier Sullivan County. We’ve always done our work in partnership with a number of dedicated organizations and individuals throughout the County. This online video series highlights our community’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We want to share the stories of how our partner agencies, our neighbors, and people throughout the County are helping one another get through this difficult time. And I have with me today as our first guest, Laura Quigley from County government, who’s really been on the front lines of our county’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Laura I’ll let you introduce yourself and what the County has been doing through the Emergency Community Assistance Center.

Laura Quigley:
Thank you, Sandy and good afternoon. As the commissioner of the newly formed Division of Community Resources, our goal is to look to better coordinate services within certain departments within the county, such as workforce development, aging, veterans, transportation, the youth bureau.

Sandi Rowland:
That’s great. Can you talk specifically about the Emergency Community Assistance center and what it’s doing in response to this pandemic?

Laura Quigley:
The intent of the center, and our primary focus is to help senior citizens, people with underlying medical conditions and those that have found themselves in quarantine. So we’ve been fortunate to create a partnership with the Salvation Army that has been providing us food to get out to those individuals that we’re looking to serve as well as partnering with the Hudson Valley food bank that has provided pallets of food for us, so that we can help backfill our local pantries so that whether it’s a direct food delivery from us, or we’re able to help our different townships get more additional foods. So they themselves can get out to their citizens. That’s what our goal is. There are new things that we’re doing. We are putting out a press release. We are doing a call for those people that can sew to make masks, so that we can get them out to all the essential workers, as well as the public. We’re starting with our essential workers. And then this is beyond nurses and doctors because they have specific masks that they must use. These can go out to a lot of other different essential workers that are in need. So that’s our new call out today.

Sandi Rowland:
Oh, that’s wonderful. What could community members do if they would like to assist your efforts?

Laura Quigley:
In terms of the masks, if they wanted to do that, we have a box at the government center in the vestibule area that you can come in and put those masks in the box. Or you can give the emergency center a call and we can arrange, especially for those people that shouldn’t be out and about. We can arrange to pick up masks.

Sandi Rowland:
What’s the best way for people to reach out to your organization, whether they need some assistance or they have some assistance they can offer, how can they best reach you?

Laura Quigley:
So the best is to go through our phone number, which is 845-807-0925. And what we encourage people for us: we could use some additional volunteers that are willing to do the food shopping for our seniors and our people with underlying medical conditions that can’t get out in the community. They really shouldn’t be out doing their own shopping. We could use some volunteers to do that. We also could use people who want to, if they really want to do something, they really should support their local food pantries either with some food or some funding that the pantry can go and purchase some additional food.

Sandi Rowland:
Is there any additional information that you would like the public to know or anything else you’d like to share?

Laura Quigley:
There have been so many individuals and organizations calling us and saying, how can we help? We have donations… can you use them? Can you get them to people, to organizations like Action Towards Independence and S.A.L.T., Which is such a great nonprofit, and Cornell Cooperative. I mean, they’ve just been terrific. And then you have individuals, whether they’re just regular citizens, you have a town supervisor like Frank DeMayo, who’s like, ‘you just let me know and I’ll make sure it happens’. That’s what I mean. So heartening. And it’s been such a team effort and there’s no “egos”. There’s no nothing. It’s just, okay, what do you need? I’ll make sure it gets done. And that’s just been terrific.

Sandi Rowland:
Thank you so much. I really appreciate your taking the time and so much for all the efforts of you and all the people working with you, who are really responding to what the community needs right now. Again, if people would like to reach out, could you remind us of your phone number again?

Laura Quigley:
Sure. It’s the Emergency Community Assistance Center and we can be reached at (845) 807-0925.

Sandi Rowland:
Great. Well, thank you so much. Thanks again for your time, Laura. And we really appreciate all the efforts that are going on. Look again for the “Sullivan 180 Presents… Take Five!” every Friday. We’ll be sharing another video about the community response to COVID-19. Thanks very much.

Laura Quigley:
Thanks a lot, Sandi.