January 8, 2019 | Read Time: 5 minutes
As the partial government shutdown enters its third week, nonprofits and volunteers across the country are stepping in to help in a variety of ways, like offering financial assistance to federal workers and providing small diversions to get them through the madness.
Here are some examples:
A Freebie for Federal Workers
The Mid-Hudson Children’s Museum in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., is inviting families of federal employees for “a free night of pizza and play” this Thursday.
Lara Litchfield-Kimber, executive director of the museum, said she decided to schedule the event on Sunday morning, then rapidly rallied support from the board and staff members to promote the event on Facebook. They only had four days to plan, but the effort has led to some early sign-ups.
Litchfield-Kimber said she had been following news of the shutdown like most people but was particularly inspired by the Poughkeepsie Journal’s reporting on how it was going to hurt tourism during the already slow winter months. The region is home to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, the Vanderbilt Mansion, among other landmarks.
The shutdown is affecting about a quarter of the federal government, or 800,000 workers nationwide. Half of those are working without pay.
Litchfield-Kimber said she was surprised to see that the neighboring areas of Dutchess County and Ulster County had 1,317 and 430 federal employees in 2018, respectively. This week’s event, she hopes, will “provide an evening of normalcy.”
She said hosting a shutdown-themed event “might not be a one-time thing” if shutdowns become more common or the current one lasts longer than a few weeks.
“Our whole neighborhood got into it,” she said, noting how she used her connections in planning the event. “Our local chef down the street at an Italian restaurant is donating all the pizzas. Another person on our board is brothers with another chef who is going to be donating lasagna. We have people baking cookies.”
She said her staff empathizes with government workers. “We are in a very expensive part of the country, and not having paychecks for the holidays spilling into the start of a new year. … I look around at our staff, and I know we couldn’t weather something like that.”
Financial Help for Federal Workers
The Hebrew Free Loan Association of Greater Washington is offering a total of $30,000 interest-free to Jewish federal employees in need, Forward reports. Fran Kritz, president of the organization, is married to a federal worker and remembers struggling to pay bills during a government shutdown in 1995.
The group has received several loan requests, said David Farber, the board president, and at least one loan is expected to go out this week. Most experts have reported that the first missed paychecks for federal employees will be later this week.
An application is available on the organization’s website. In the Washington, D.C., area the group is offering loans from $500 to $2,000 per household. It will also waive some of the usual requirements, like having a guarantor, although it requests that grantees repay the loans within two weeks of receiving their next pay check.
Other free loan associations, in Austin, Tex., and San Francisco, are exploring these options too.
Federal Parks Get Many Assists
A group of young Muslim men in the youth group Ahmadiyya Muslim Community recently went to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to help pick up debris from overflowing recycling and trash bins.
Groups like these weren’t just in the nation’s capital, reports the Washington Post. Others did the same in California, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Utah.
The Muslim organization took the opportunity to promote its mission and combat negative stereotypes about Islam. One helper told the Post, “If there’s an opportunity to serve, that is what Muslims do.” Another said it was their duty to help and that “we’re just as American as anybody else.”
Volunteering Won’t Offset Larger Concerns
In Florida, even with the help, the shutdown is a slap in the face after previous losses caused by Hurricane Irma. Some parks were projecting a bounce back this year.
“You take two years with back-to-back hits, and your most revenue-generating weeks are affected,” said Jim Sutton, executive director of the nonprofit Florida National Parks Association in an interview with the Miami Herald. “It hurts.”
The National Park Service announced this week that it has had to tap into its entrance fees to pay for operations of popular sites, an unprecedented move due to funding lapses. Limited staff has allowed for limited services. The reality is that volunteering is not enough to compensate.
But that hasn’t stopped some ambitious people from trying, even if it means they have to spend. Friends of Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi, for example, have paid $2,000 daily to keep a park open.
Other volunteers are helping where the federal government has fallen short, such as the Redwood National and State Parks in California and the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island. The latter, which received $65,000 each day from the State of New York, was buoyed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who did not resist taking a swipe at Congress and the executive branch while handing out the emergency funds.
“We’re watching government at its worst in Washington,” he said in an interview with 1010 WINS, a local radio station. “The Statue of Liberty is a symbol of America at her best.”
