There are charitable organizations in Park City that are well aware of the problems now facing the local workforce. Employees have been laid off or had their hours cut back, after the Public Health Order that closed down the town’s resorts, restaurants, theaters and other gathering spots.
KPCW checked in with representatives of the Park City Christian Center and the Park City Community Foundation.
Katie Wright, the Executive Director of the Community Foundation, said that on Friday they launched the Community Response Fund. She said the aim is to help out local non-profits, their employees and the people they serve, in the wake of the COVID-19 virus.
She said the fund has a little under $70,000. Their first grant, of about $25,000 went to the Christian Center.
The Center already had established a Basic Needs Assistance Fund, but now it’s needed more than ever.
The Center’s Executive Director, Rob Harter, said to apply for funding you can go to the Center’s website, connect to the link for the Basic Needs Fund, and fill out a form.
“There’s a form to fill out, and they can just say what they need most. If it’s rent assistance, if it’s utility bill assistance, again if a car repair, whatever it is. They fill it out, and then we’re able to get back to them. We’ve always had this kinda standard practice where, as opposed to giving the money directly to them, we’d typically say, we want to give this money directly to your apartment manager or to the power company or whatever bill it is, we typically send the check right to them.”
In the meantime, he said they’re shifting resources from the Center’s Thrift Store to the Food Pantry. Harter said they will be dispensing food in the same carry-out format that is now required for all Park City restaurants.
“We’re doing a grab-and-go system, where we’re asking people to sign up online. So that was part of our text messaging that we sent out was, encouraging people to sign up at a time. So it’s one family at a time, one individual at a time. We started today—so far, so good. We’ve had several people come through. We in fact—we sent that out on Friday late afternoon. We’ve had 150 families, which on average that’s probably 3 to 4 people per family. So it’s a pretty quick and large response to that text.”
Harter added that they will investigate the possibility that the Center can accept food from some of the local restaurants that have now been shuttered. They might also consider food deliveries to elderly shut-ins in the Park City area.
