Updated March 25, 2020 at 7:00am

Like many organizations across metro Atlanta, we are closely monitoring the COVID-19 news and updates from the CDC and the World Health Organization. In an effort to be proactive, prioritizing the health and safety of our staff and our community, we have put together the following continuity plan.

Until further notice, we are following guidance from the State of Georgia and Atlanta’s Mayor Bottoms, and are postponing all “non-essential” volunteer projects. We will remain focused on fighting food insecurity and supporting essential nonprofit organizations and community needs. We’re also requesting all nonprofit partners and volunteer projects adhere to safety guidelines requiring a minimum of 6 ft distance between volunteers and projects less than 10 people. We’re working hard to ensure our calendar of volunteer projects and internal programs are updated accordingly and following these new safety guidelines.

A summary of our response and current activities is below. We'll provide further updates as things evolve, but in the meantime, thanks for doing your part to ensure the safety and well-being of you and those around you!

our internal plan

This kind of pandemic planning is new for everyone, especially us. However, we’re lucky to have the support of our fellow Points of Light Global Network Affiliates and have leaned on what others are doing across the globe to deal with the crisis. We are sharing our internal game plan, as it might be helpful for you or your organization. Our friends at the Georgia Center for Nonprofits have also created a contingency plan template. Until further notice we have:

Closed our office from Monday, March 16 - 27. This will cancel any volunteer projects and events happening at our office location (600 Means St.) within that timeline.
Created an internal response team to plan and implement the necessary actions for our team and greater community of partners and volunteers
Suspended all nonessential travel outside of GA.
Reinforced our flexible work from home policy to accommodate staff during the time our office will be closed.
Asked that anyone on our team who has a fever and/or symptoms of acute respiratory illness must stay home and not come to work until they are free of fever (e.g. 100F or lower) or any other symptoms for at least 24-hours, without the use a fever-reducing or other symptom-altering medicine (e.g. cough suppressants).
Asked teammates if a family member is sick with an acute respiratory illness, the employee may not return to work until 14 days after the family member became symptomatic.
A mandatory 14-day quarantine for all staff if in the event someone at Hands On ATL tests positive for COVID-19/Coronavirus.

Our Community Plan

We are working on contingency plans with all of our partners to keep the community’s best interest first. We have:

Created a Community Relief landing page with available volunteer opportunities, resources for those in need and more.
Postponed our Discovery and TeamWorks! programs until further notice
Posted all activity within the Civic Leadership Program
Sent safety guidelines and restrictions to Starbucks Service Fellows projects - focused on food insecurity - and are updating our calendar accordingly
Host Talk With Me Baby @ Work sessions digitally. To sign up for these email abisgaard@handsonatlanta.org
Asked volunteers (or volunteer family members) that have been exposed to COVID-19 self-quarantine and NOT volunteer with us for at least 14-days.
Been listening carefully to our nonprofit and school partners, and promoting their urgent needs on our calendar and via our social media, in addition to our Relief landing page.

If any of the following conditions apply to you, we ask that you not sign-up for any project at a Community/Nonprofit Partner location and stay at home for the safety of everyone:

If you currently have a cough, fever, or any respiratory illness
If you currently have a heart condition, lung disease, diabetes, or any other serious health condition, or are over the age of 65
If you or anyone in your household have traveled to China, Iran, South Korea, Japan, or Europe in the past two weeks
If you or anyone in your household have been in close contact with anyone who is confirmed to have COVID-19

If none of conditions 1-4 apply to you and you are comfortable volunteering, you may sign up for a project.

Before you begin a project, we’ll ask that you wash your hands thoroughly for 20 seconds with soap and water or use an alcohol-based sanitizer. Supplies are limited for sanitizer, gloves and masks, please bring your own to projects if possible.

If you must stay home for the safety of our community, we have remote/digital volunteer opportunities (see Volunteer From Home below) that you may sign-up for.

VIEW AVAILABLE VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES

VOLUNTEER FROM HOME

Here are some really easy ways you can do something good, without leaving your house:

Answer college and career readiness questions from students using CareerVillage
Make the world more accessible for the visually impaired and download Be My Eyes
Give refugees and people in need of humanitarian assistance on-demand language access with Tarjimly
Connect low-income youth with live academic support to help them on their path to achieving upward mobility with UPchieve.

explore all the ways you can help from home

Keep an eye on this page (it will be updated regularly) for news, updates and changes in our plan based on recommendations from the CDC and our community partners. Thank you for helping us tackle Atlanta’s most pressing needs!

Please share what you or your organization is doing to keep our community safe from COVID-19 in the comments below.