It was 1 o’clock in the morning when it struck. Winston Morelock and his wife, Wilma Faye, were in bed in their home in East Nashville that they’d shared for 42 years.

The tornado sirens pierced through the night, and then they stopped. There was no sound, Mr. Morelock recalls, and then “all at once it was on top of us.” 

Broken glass, chunks of wood, and parts of the ceiling flew everywhere. Mr. Morelock pulled the mattress over himself and his wife just as the roof and side of their house was ripped away by the swirling storm.

“The next morning, at first light, when I saw what was left of our home, I fell apart and started to cry,” Mr. Morelock says. “I was in shock. Shaking all over. Crying. We came so close to death.”

A cluster of tornadoes swept through middle Tennessee before dawn on Tuesday, March 3, killing at least two dozen people, with thousands of buildings damaged or destroyed and streets impassable with debris and downed power lines. Many more were left without power and some have just recently gotten it back on. 

It was the kind of natural disaster that typically makes the national news for days. Hordes of volunteers quickly flooded the streets where the tornado struck, moving debris, helping residents salvage belongings, and setting up food stations to help sustain those picking through the wreckage of their lives.

But Nashville – and the Morelocks, who are both in their 70s – soon faced another crisis: a pandemic. And this crisis meant the city would have to tell everyone to go home.

John Partipilo

Winston Morelock and his wife Wilma Faye were still shaken after a tornado shredded their home in East Nashville, March 3, 2020. "I thought we were dead but God had his hand around us".

[Editor’s note: As a public service, all our coronavirus coverage is free. No paywall.]

On March 5, just two days after the tornado, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced that the state had its first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus. The patient resided in Williamson County, just south of Nashville. Just a few days later, Davidson County, which contains Nashville, confirmed its first case. Now, Tennessee has more than 900 confirmed cases, many in Davidson County.

When calls for social distancing swept the nation as concerns about the coronavirus rose earlier this month, middle Tennessee was still reeling from the tornadoes. Houses were still roofless, people were still crashing on friends’ and family’s couches or in hotels, and volunteers were still gathering by the hundreds to help with the recovery. 

This community, primed to show up physically for one another in a time of need, now grapples with an unprecedented challenge. How does a city deal with a natural disaster and a pandemic at the same time? 

“With the tornado, it’s about rolling up your sleeves and getting dirty and helping your neighbor out and moving stuff. Now we’re talking about keeping yourself [isolated],” says William Swann, director chief of Nashville’s Office of Emergency Management. “So how do we keep things moving and keep balance? ... It’s going to take a lot of prayer and a lot of hard work and a lot of patience.”

A surge of volunteers

In the hours after the tornadoes, volunteers quickly swarmed the devastated neighborhoods looking for ways to help. Roving bands toting chainsaws made quick work of downed trees blocking the roads. Volunteers set up sandwich-making stations so residents wouldn’t have to think about how to eat while surveying the damage to their homes. Nonprofit organizations already engaged in the affected communities, like Gideon’s Army in North Nashville, quickly organized to canvass the neighborhoods to check on residents and determine what more needed to be done. 

In the days following the tornadoes, Hands On Nashville, an organization that served as a sort of clearing house for volunteers in the wake of the tornadoes, saw some 26,000 people sign up to volunteer on their website, says Lindsey Turner, director of communications at Hands On Nashville. Over the following weekend, people were actually told to stay home, find other ways to help, or volunteer at a later date because volunteers had overwhelmed the system. So many people had shown up that the streets became clogged and it was difficult for utility vehicles to get through to restore the power and do the heavier lifting. 

“The turnout from this city and the way that they have all come together, it has been incredibly overwhelming,” says Carter Jane Pond. Her apartment building in the Germantown neighborhood of Nashville was sideswiped by the tornado. 

Over the weekend after the tornado, Ms. Pond recalls, hundreds of volunteers showed up to her apartment building. Several of them helped Ms. Pond and her boyfriend move all of their salvageable belongings into a storage unit in about five hours.

“There were two people in the closet packing up all of our clothes, two people in the bathroom, three people unmounting our television, two people in the kitchen,” in addition to the couple and a friend, she says. “Empathy can be very overwhelming. It was truly a sight to behold.”

Getting creative

All of those hands made quick work of the small-scale debris cleanup, says Mr. Swann, and the city was able to shift to the heavy equipment phase two weeks after the tornado. FEMA joined the effort too, setting up booths throughout the area for survivors to come apply for federal disaster assistance. But over the weekend, FEMA reduced those in-person activities, allowing tornado survivors to apply online or via the phone without going to a recovery center. 

At the same time, the governor called for all schools in Tennessee to close last week to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. And since Monday, March 23, Nashville has been under a “safer at home order,” which closes all nonessential businesses and encourages residents to stay home.

Still, volunteer efforts continued, even amid that changing tone. The focus had shifted from debris removal to donations, and organizations like Hands On Nashville, Gideon’s Army, and others established distribution centers for tornado victims to pick up donated food and supplies. 

Initially those spaces operated somewhat like a free grocery store, staffed with volunteers, says Tee Wilson, director of communications at Gideon’s Army. But as concerns spread, it quickly became apparent that adhering to social distancing guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would make it impossible to continue to rely on large groups of people in the same warehouse together. 

“It’s definitely frustrating in a lot of ways because we were in the thick of responding to lots and lots of disparate kinds of needs, and suddenly [the coronavirus] hit and we had to completely reevaluate and are still in the process of reevaluating how it is volunteers can help in the recovery effort,” Ms. Turner of Hands On Nashville says. “It’s definitely a work in progress, and everything is changing so quickly.”

As the second week after the tornado came to a close, Hands On Nashville shifted to a drive-up model, where volunteers work in smaller groups and deliver requested supplies to visitors’ cars. In North Nashville, Gideon’s Army opted for a delivery model, bringing supplies to those affected by the tornado.

The tricky part is getting the word out and checking on people who the organization hasn’t already connected with, says Kate Briefs, disaster relief volunteer coordinator for Gideon’s Army. Immediately following the tornado, Gideon’s Army had volunteers canvassing the directly and obviously affected neighborhoods, but the plan was to repeat that and go farther into areas that had lost power or that the tornado impacted in another indirect way. With face-to-face contact reduced to a minimum, fewer volunteers bucking social distancing measures, and not many masks or other protection tools available, that isn’t really possible anymore. Instead, Gideon’s Army has shifted to a virtual system, working to build a network and a hotline for people to request assistance for themselves and others. 

But that doesn’t mean prioritizing tornado recovery over coronavirus prevention or halting their work, says Ms. Briefs. “When we see this pandemic, we just think, OK, it’s time to level up,” she says. “How do we need to be more creative to support our community as effectively as possible?”

John Partipilo

Tom Larson surveys the damage to his East Nashville home, March 4, 2020. He and his wife Misty are staying in a nearby rental. The couple was heartened by the number of volunteers who came out to help in the tornadoes' wake. "Now because of the virus no one can help even if they wanted to," says Mr. Larson. "It's mind boggling."

“Taking it day to day”

For Tom Larson, the tornado and the coronavirus have truly been a one-two punch. 

When the tornado hit, Mr. Larson had Airbnb guests staying upstairs in his home in East Nashville. When he realized this wasn’t just any storm, the guests, Mr. Larson, and his wife, Misty, hurried into the basement. As Mr. Larson turned to close the door, it was yanked out of his hand by the tornado and the winds threatened to pull him along with it. His guest – a preacher – grabbed onto his robe and pulled him to safety.

“The tornado was so traumatic,” Mr. Larson says.

Most of the Larsons’ home was destroyed, taking their Airbnb income with it. And more financial woes were yet to come. 

Like many in Nashville, Mr. Larson is a musician – a drummer – and plays gigs around Music City. Music is the backbone of Nashville’s culture, and underpins its vibrant tourist industry. Any night of the week, residents and visitors alike have lots of music to choose from, and Airbnb does a brisk business in the city – especially in East Nashville.

Last week, many music venues and bars began to close even before being ordered to by the city. All of Mr. Larson’s gigs were canceled. Service workers also reliant on the tourist economy have begun to be laid off as businesses shutter for the pandemic. This leaves questions about how these residents might be able to afford rebuilding.

“This is really pressing on us, and it’s so confusing,” Mr. Larson says. “We’re just taking it day to day.”

“A second to breathe”

For Ms. Pond, the coronavirus was not top of mind until she and her boyfriend had moved into a new apartment last week.

“The tornado was my priority No. 1,” Ms. Pond says. “It feels like now that I’m in a home and finally have a second to breathe, I am actually taking coronavirus seriously.”

Still, she adds, after living in a hotel since the tornado, the couple had no food and lacked some necessities lost in the tornado, so excursions have been necessary.

Despite having family in the area, the Morelocks have been staying alone in a hotel. They wear masks whenever they are out and about, prepare their own meals at the hotel, are mindful to wash their hands and stay away from other people as much as possible. 

“It is very worrisome,” Mr. Morelock says. “We have a lot of stress about the tornado and insurance, plus the virus.”

Still, he says, surviving the tornado strengthened his beliefs, and, “I have faith that God will help us with these problems somehow.”

Editor’s note: As a public service, all our coronavirus coverage is free. No paywall.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff/File

The 2008 financial crisis resulted in a rash of housing foreclosures, like this one in The Forum housing development in Fort Myers, Florida. But the economic recession accompanying the coronavirus pandemic is a very different beast.

In its speed and its depth, this new global recession really is different from those that came before.

That’s how economists view the near shutdown of economies across major portions of the world due to the coronavirus. And they say it means the solutions should be different too.

Unlike the housing market and banking meltdown of 2008, this is a contagion affecting public health that has hit the global economy much more suddenly.

How about the 1918 Spanish flu? That was another serious pandemic, in fact one where the deaths totaled an estimated 2% of world population. But this time around, the economic toll comes from conscious efforts to stop a disease before it gets that bad.

The unusual nature of this crisis has implications for the policy responses now underway in Congress and beyond. 

Editor’s note: As a public service, we’ve removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage. It’s free.

One key example: A plunge in business revenue, prompting a record-fast spike in unemployment, is putting special focus on how to prop up ailing businesses – not just households or banks – to avoid still deeper and more permanent job losses in the weeks ahead.

Moreover, because of its roots in a pandemic, the economic answers to this crisis are also prominently intertwined with public health – perhaps extending to wartime-style mobilization of resources. And on all fronts, experts say this crisis calls, more urgently than most, for both a rapid initial response and a sustained, adaptive follow-through.

“This is a unique and profound challenge,” says Jonathan Rothwell, principal economist for Gallup and a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. It requires an extraordinary response, he adds, even as he voices hope that with proper containment of the disease, within months people may “feel comfortable going on vacations again and going to sporting events again.”

How is this different?

The abruptness and severity stand out. From restaurants and hotels to auto production and Uber rides, major segments of the economy have come to a virtual halt amid government-encouraged efforts to contain the COVID-19 disease. 

Disease-induced effects on the economy are rare but not unprecedented. Researchers say a 1918 influenza pandemic (inaptly called the “Spanish” flu) was the fourth-worst global economic event since 1870, after World War I, World War II, and the Great Depression. 

Library of Congress /AP/File

A conductor checks to see if potential passengers are wearing masks in Seattle during the 1918-19 influenza pandemic. Now, a century later, history is repeating itself – but the economic ramifications are very different.

There was “social distancing” and similar efforts back then, but not to today’s extent. This may be the first time that government responses to a public health crisis have caused a recession, says economist Timothy Taylor, managing editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, by email.

Yet that doesn’t mean intervention on behalf of public health is bad for the economy. A newly released paper examining the 1918 pandemic, by Federal Reserve and Massachusetts Institute of Technology economists, finds that cities that intervened earlier and more aggressively did not perform worse economically “and, if anything, grow faster after the pandemic is over.” 

What does this mean for solutions?

Today’s temporary curbs on restaurant dining, concerts, movies, and numerous other activities are described by many experts as efforts to “flatten the curve” of COVID-19 deaths, to hold a spike in check and reduce it over time.

The economic responses, similarly, aim to flatten a different curve – the magnitude of the recession’s effects on households and businesses.

On Friday, the House passed a $2 trillion bipartisan deal, struck by the Senate in consultation with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, sending it to President Donald Trump for his promised signature. The package includes loans and assistance to stave off mass layoffs by small businesses and hard-hit industries such as airlines. It also targets most individual Americans with relief checks, and bolsters the unemployment insurance system. Comparable steps are being tried in many nations around the world. 

Although all that is being called “stimulus,” the goal differs from typical recessions.

“You can’t simultaneously create conditions that cause whole industries to shut down, and also ‘stimulate’ the economy at the same time. What we’re doing now is just a gigantic Band-Aid,” Dr. Taylor says.

This is where persistence and adaptation comes in. The immediate bandage is vital. (Britain, Ireland, and Denmark have plans to retain jobs by directly helping with payroll costs during the downturn. The U.S. is trying easy loans toward that same end.) 

But so is resolving the pandemic. Getting the economy restarted while also minimizing recurrences of COVID-19 “will be an ongoing process,” Dr. Taylor says, “and it’s probably going to involve both bottom-up experimentation and top-down regulation.”

What are the challenges and pitfalls?

The foremost question about all this is, what will actually work? Steps such as cash payments to households and loans to businesses have proved their worth in past crises, economists say. And although the big rescue package from Congress has flaws, Dr. Rothwell says it echoes his own preferred solution by offering loan forgiveness to businesses that use the money to maintain their payrolls.

Other questions relate to fairness or concerns about inequality. Plenty of economists, even on the liberal side, stress the importance of speedy and generous assistance over agonizing about who’s getting how much help. Yet many counter that a rescue can and should be tailored for equity and accountability. 

“There’s no reason for me to get a $1,000 check,” says Dr. Rothwell in Washington, noting that he’s still being paid while many Americans have lost all or much of their income. 

The U.S. Senate bill will mandate that Trump-family businesses won’t get direct government infusions of money, and that cash payments to households have an income-based ceiling. 

While some observers still decry what they see as a federal penchant for bailouts, economist Ioana Marinescu of the University of Pennsylvania says businesses aren’t responsible for this crisis. Instead, she says they warrant rescue in this case as a kind of “public good,” for the collective benefits (jobs and incomes) that are at risk if they fail.

As some experts see it, the stakes go beyond public health and the economy. Social cohesion is also potentially threatened if the crisis leaves many desperate and without money.

“The main (perhaps even the sole) objective of economic policy today should be to prevent social breakdown,” writes economist Branko Milanovic, an expert on global inequality at the City University of New York, in a March 19 Foreign Affairs article. 

And although these are extraordinary times, that doesn’t guarantee such challenges won’t recur, notes Dr. Taylor. Now is the time to refine the menu of responses. 

“With the next outbreak – whether it’s COVID-19 or something else new – governments will have no excuse for not being much more prepared from day one,” he says.

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Even though it was a sunny afternoon, Father Corey Bassett-Tirrell was shocked to see the line of cars in the parking lot of St. Mary Church in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, waiting to participate in the parish’s first ever drive-through confessional.

A week earlier, before the pandemic upended the religious traditions of communities throughout the world, forcing many to forgo physical gatherings for prayer and worship, the newly ordained priest had heard only a single confession in the booth within St. Mary’s sanctuary.

As he sat dressed in his white-laced surplice on a chair surrounded by orange traffic cones, Mr. Bassett-Tirrell offered the sacrament of reconciliation to 17 drive-through penitents in just over two hours.

“Never in all my days did I ever think that I would be unable to celebrate my first Holy Week as a priest,” says Mr. Bassett-Tirrell, who was ordained last year and is now the parochial vicar at the Chelmsford Catholic Collaborative, which includes the parish of St. John the Evangelist. “When the Lenten fast came upon us on Ash Wednesday in February, we had no idea that in two or three weeks’ time, we’d be in a Eucharistic fast as well.”

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Like so many places of worship across the U.S., the two Roman Catholic churches that comprise this pastoral collaborative in the Archdiocese of Boston have suspended all physical gatherings – including the celebration of the Mass, the central act of worship for Catholics culminating with the sacrament of the Eucharist.

And while the collaborative is well-prepared to livestream services and sermons, having had in place robust social media options for those unable to attend in person, Mr. Bassett-Tirrell says these technologies are not substitutes for the essential physical and embodied practices of Catholic worship.

“But I see this as a great opportunity – though a difficult one,” he continues. One of the purposes of fasting during Lent is to rediscover life’s everyday joys through a period of self-reflection and abstinence. 

“So my hope and my prayer is that people will come back to the altar at a time when it’s safe again, and have a deeper understanding of what it is that we are receiving,” he says.

Just two weeks into an unprecedented era of social distancing and canceled community gatherings, many of the nation’s communities of worship, including mosques, synagogues, and other traditions of worship, have been forced to find alternative forms of gatherings for prescribed rituals and forms of worship.

Within America’s tapestry of religious traditions, the vast majority have turned to technology, including interactive teleconferenced gatherings, livestreamed services, and even old-fashioned conference calls. 

But for many, the absence of certain physical rites and community rituals have presented profound theological conundrums.

If it’s online, is it jumu’ah?

“To suspend the Friday prayer, to suspend an obligation that has been made quite clear in the Scripture, is quite serious – you are almost upending God’s law,” says Selaedin Maksut, a religious scholar and civil rights advocate in New Jersey who was scheduled to preach a sermon at the Muslim Community Center in Paramus last Friday before it was canceled.

Two weeks ago, as the scope and seriousness of the coronavirus epidemic was beginning to unfold in the U.S., Muslim communities throughout New York and New Jersey were “pulling their hair out,” Mr. Maksut says, as the community tried to decide on Thursday whether or not to cancel prayer services, the primary day of worship that Muslims call jumu’ah. It is a religious requirement for all adult Muslim men. 

“The conversation was, well, how about we just have the sermon on Facebook so everyone can observe from home?” continues Mr. Maksut, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “But the scholars came to their collective opinion that this wouldn’t qualify as jumu’ah. Jumu’ah is essentially a congregational thing. You can’t check the box and say, ‘OK, today I went to jumu’ah because I listened to the sermon online.’ You might be listening at home, but you’re really not participating in the essential physical, collective, and group effort.”

Friday services are also part of the social rhythms of American Muslim communities, a time and place to gather to discuss politics, business, and other aspects of life. 

Still, in Muslim theology, Mr. Maksut and others say, the preservation of human life is paramount and supersedes all other religious obligations.

“It is our moral duty as Muslims that we take all steps necessary to safeguard ourselves and others around us from this terrible disease,” said the Fiqh Council of North America in a joint statement with organizations including The Islamic Medical Association of North America and the Islamic Society of North America. “One’s personal desire to do obligatory prayers at the masjid or fulfill other religious duties comes secondary to ensuring the common health of the larger community.”

Shabbat via Zoom

Last Friday, the Conservative synagogue Temple Beth O’r Beth Torah in Clark, New Jersey, welcomed Shabbat as a congregation using Zoom. Cantor Steven Stern began the service with the traditional song “Shalom Aleichem,” or “Peace Be with You.”

“We’re a small congregation, and people are just trying to get accustomed to the technology,” says Mr. Stern, who’s also planning group meetings on the platform to discuss texts from the Torah and Talmud. “But we’re hoping to combine elements of the service together with an opportunity where we can actually see each other and hear each other, ask questions and answer questions, and to really, in that way, connect and feel part of the community.”

COVID-19 has in many ways thrust long-simmering theological questions about religion and the nature of community in the digital age into stark relief, says the Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, a Baptist minister who has spent a significant part of his nearly 25 years as an ordained minister in online communities.

“I always start with the question, when two or three are gathered online, is Christ there? And then, if 10 Jews are on a Zoom call, is that a minyan?” says Mr. Raushenbush, now a senior adviser for public affairs and innovation at the Interfaith Youth Core, which fosters interfaith cooperation in U.S. colleges.

“The truth is, we are in touch with one another much more because of technology than we were before, not less,” he says. “My Facebook page feels like a prayer circle, and people are reaching out to one another and people are showing up for one another in new and unprecedented ways that are allowing for a sense of deep community.”

On this virtual rock

Last Sunday, Mr. Raushenbush helped lead a spiritual gathering using the virtual reality environment Altspace. Using avatars in a virtual grass field surrounded by hills during a rising full moon, the virtual minister led about two dozen people in a guided 10-minute meditation before asking them to gather with him on a large rock in the middle of the field. 

He asked how they were holding up, and as many of those gathered responded, others could virtually express their emotions with VR versions of “emoticons.” As avatars were speaking, others were releasing cascades of hearts that bubbled above their heads to express their connection to the speaker’s words.

“We are less inhibited online, which, yes, can be bad,” says Mr. Raushenbush, who lives in Brooklyn. “But it can also be good. We can actually say things to one another and show up for one another in ways that can be deeply loving, and show our vulnerability and be present to one another in a way that sometimes face-to-face meetings do not allow.”

In some ways, something similar happened at the drive-through confessional in St. Mary’s parking lot.

“I had a few of the penitents tell me – and thank us for offering the sacrament this way – because they said they had been away from the church for quite some time, but they thought this might be a less intimidating medium in which to receive the sacrament of reconciliation,” says Mr. Bassett-Tirrell.

Still, many are longing for the time when they can renew the forms of worship that are central to the faith.

Both St. Mary and St. John the Evangelist remain open for individuals to come to pray, as they follow CDC guidelines for social distancing. And priests still say the Mass and bless the elements of the Eucharist and then partake themselves – which is then livestreamed.

But one of the staff was helping with the altar linens last week, and she asked the priest if he would give her Holy Communion as well. 

“And it just broke my heart, because I couldn’t, because we’re not allowed to,” he says. But it’s precisely this kind of longing during a time of fasting and absence from physical communion that makes him hope that when the crisis passes, it could usher in a time of renewal – just as the season of Lent culminates in the joy of Easter. 

“In the end, we’re hoping this crisis can bring us all to a deeper connection and understanding of the Blessed Sacrament, our understanding of Scripture, and our joyful celebration of the liturgy,” he says.

Editor’s note: As a public service, all our coronavirus coverage is free. There is no paywall.

Herb Chasan could have eased into retirement after spending 18 years teaching math to high school students, and another 30 years remodeling homes. But the octogenarian couldn’t rest. He saw a need in the lower-income neighborhoods near his home in Framingham, and he wanted to meet it.

So Mr. Chasan founded Hoops and Homework, an after-school program that has provided activities and tutoring for youth up to age 14. Since 2012, Hoops and Homework has helped more than 300 children who otherwise would have gone home to empty houses or roamed the streets until their parents got off work.

Thanks to Mr. Chasan and a dedicated group of staff members and volunteers, the children instead have spent industrious afternoons making crafts, playing basketball, learning violin and yoga, gardening, and basking in the attention of a small army of tutors.

“Our goal is to help these kids break the cycle of poverty and jail – to have a good job, to be a success,” says Mr. Chasan.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Herb Chasan plays on the jungle gym with a boy from the neighborhood in Framingham, Massachusetts, March 12, 2020.

As anyone who has launched a community organization knows, the work isn’t easy – but the rewards can be big.

“Expansion in after-school programs is very slow. It’s very hard to keep programs running when reimbursement rates are low, especially for programs serving low-income families,” says Ardith Wieworka, CEO of the Massachusetts Afterschool Partnership, an advocacy group.

There is huge demand for programs like Hoops and Homework, says Ms. Wieworka. “For every kid who’s in [a] program, there are two more kids in Massachusetts who would like to be in a program if one was available,” she says.

These days at Hoops and Homework, it’s not business as usual, of course. The regular after-school operations have been suspended amid the coronavirus outbreak. But Mr. Chasan is still working behind the scenes, and the organization hopes to proceed with expansion plans soon.

Books and crayons

Before the outbreak brought activity to a halt, at 3 p.m. on a Wednesday, 10 children filed in to the organization’s Interfaith Terrace center and found their seats around a table. Homework came out of backpacks. The table quickly became a jumbled pile of books, crayons, and worksheets. The air was filled with chuckles and curious questions.

The day’s volunteers – a married couple – spread out to assist the children with their work, ranging from numbers to science, or maybe an art project.

Fourth grader Jadiel Febus, who wants to be a YouTuber when he grows up, says his favorite activity at the center is basketball, while fifth grader and aspiring police officer Martin Garcia sings high praise of the flashcards and math table.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

The Hoops and Homework program has also offered opportunities for children to create artwork.

In a relatively recent development, a regional YMCA – drawing on a U.S. Department of Agriculture program – has partnered with Hoops and Homework to provide balanced suppers every day.

“We have a state-of-the-art kitchen that can produce hundreds and hundreds of meals. So we want to be able to feed kids after school and teach them how to have the [life] skills they need,” says Maggie Lynch, nutrition director at the MetroWest YMCA.

Hoops and Homework also has a partnership with Lovin’ Spoonfuls, a nonprofit in the Boston area dedicated to food rescue. According to Mr. Chasan, that organization has enabled the after-school program to continue providing meals for its most disadvantaged families during the coronavirus outbreak. Labeled bags of food are available for families to pick up at the door of Hoops and Homework sites.

Mr. Chasan says he is also working with the MetroWest YMCA on a takeout system.

The power of a basketball court

Mr. Chasan has been a Framingham resident for 50 years, living about 15 minutes away from the two sites where the program is held. But it wasn’t until eight years ago that he stepped into one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, when he was hanging up campaign posters for a friend running for local government. He noticed a run-down basketball court and a group of children loitering nearby with nothing to do.

He couldn’t shake the image from his mind, and it became the driving force for Hoops and Homework.

“Can you believe I never came to this neighborhood before 2012?” asks Mr. Chasan with a laugh.

Within a few months, he pitched his idea at a town hall meeting with a few others and secured $81,000 in town funding to start Hoops and Homework. From then on, Mr. Chasan has captained a rigorous effort to sustain funding and expand the program.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Neighborhood children play on the basketball court that Herb Chasan helped build for the after-school program Hoops and Homework in Framingham, Massachusetts, March 12, 2020.

“He goes to all the people who are muckety-mucks in Framingham and may ask everybody for money,” says Annabel Dodd, Mr. Chasan’s close friend since the 1960s. He solicited restaurants, businesses, and city officials.

“He was like a one-man show,” says Ms. Dodd. He made the program “his mission,” persevering through many obstacles.

It takes $170,000 annually, about $5,600 per child, to run both centers. The sum is met through fundraising and donations, as well as through vouchers from the state.

To realize a playground at the Interfaith Terrace center in 2018, Mr. Chasan worked with Ricky Finlay, a board member at the time. They acquired a grant to pay for the equipment, but the labor to build the playground came at zero cost.

“We had ... politicians, union labor, carpenters. We had the school superintendents. You name it, just the community came together,” says Mr. Finlay, who estimates the turnout was close to 200 volunteers.

Hoops and Homework has encouraged people from different parts of the community to volunteer during the after-school sessions because they can tell the children “someday, you may be doing that job,” says Judy Wester, the organization’s on-call health consultant. “We love to have role models come in.”

Last year Paul Gildea, deputy chief at the Framingham Fire Department, heard about the program from someone at work. Shortly afterward, he visited the Pusan center, the second Hoops and Homework site. He enjoyed it so much that he began volunteering every Thursday.

“The kids seem to open up ... asking me to participate in games and stuff,” he says.

The families that participate in the program live at housing complexes located near the two sites. Many cannot afford the transportation costs to other after-school programs in Framingham.

Darlene Jette is a single parent who lives next door to the Pusan center. She has sent her two children, a 7-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter, to Hoops and Homework since 2013. “I love how they are hands-on with arts and crafts,” says Ms. Jette.

The program goes beyond helping children. Most of the staff members are bilingual, which enables them to serve the largely Spanish-speaking community, which hails mostly from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

“My English is not good,” says Keila Cupid, a parent who lives close to the Interfaith Terrace center. But the mother of 11-year-old Crisaly Cupid is clear in expressing her gratitude for Hoops and Homework: “[It’s] a safe space for my daughter when I am away to my English class.”

Reuters

Elderly people walk across Richmond Green in London, Britain, March 24.

A curious thing happened in Britain after its government began to take the coronavirus outbreak seriously. Officials asked for volunteers to assist the loneliest people in a nation told to remain isolated indoors for three weeks. They hoped 250,000 people would sign up and, after being given safety training, deliver basic goods and companionship – even if digitally – to an estimated 1.5 million vulnerable people, mainly older people living alone.

Then the curious part happened.

Within 24 hours, more than 500,000 people stepped up to help. The number keeps growing and could reach 1 million. The outpouring of mercy has been dubbed the largest volunteer recruitment drive since World War II.

The battle against loneliness did not stop there. Radio manufacturers are giving free digital radios to older people as a “lifeline” and a “companion,” according to the BBC. At a smaller level, some people are loaning their dogs to those living alone. With such outreach, the narrative of fear and isolation is being shifted to one of neighborliness and community.

For the past few years, Britain has worried about what it sees as an “epidemic” of loneliness. Alarms went off a few years ago when a poll found 200,000 people said they had not spoken to anyone for a year. About 14% of people said they often or always feel lonely. In 2018, the government set up a “ministry for loneliness” to tackle the problem.

Britain is not the only country aware of the problem. In the United States, 61% of adults said they were lonely in a 2020 survey by health insurer Cigna, up from 54% in 2018. In both the U.S. and the United Kingdom, the majority of those who cite their loneliness are under 50 years old.

Britain’s work against its loneliness “epidemic” has now been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. People rarely admit they are lonely. In fact, many people can have plenty of friends and family but still feel apart for an assortment of reasons, such as fear of rejection. Now, in their mental or emotional wilderness, they are being sought out by an army of volunteers and offered moments of genuine caring.

Perhaps in a reflection of Britain’s campaign, the World Health Organization has decided to correct its term for people staying apart during the outbreak. It has dropped “social distancing” and prefers “physical distancing.” The urge to be social – to embrace each other in thought and word if not in person – cannot be denied.