Caring Middle Tennessee residents volunteer with the Community Resource Center, a valued organization that continues to provide resources to survivors, from toilet paper to food to household goods. Photo courtesy Community Resource Center
Through multiple disasters, Middle Tennessee survives, thanks to nonprofits, donors More appropriately, we’re pushing through it in Middle Tennessee, past, present and future tense. Through devastating and deadly tornadoes. Through an even more deadly worldwide pandemic and resulting economic turmoil. Through weeks-long civil unrest and demonstrations caused by long-festering racial equity and equality issues, interrupted by outsiders who set fire to our majestic downtown courthouse. Through some rare straight-line wind weather phenomenon called a derecho, which for a time crippled our electric power grid even more severely than the tornadoes. And, as the year lurched to a close on a quiet Christmas morning, Historic Second Avenue in Downtown Nashville, due to a lone attacker, was bombed. A significant chunk of the city block was decimated and our power grid again was crippled for days. We pushed through all of it. It was that kind of a year, across the globe and, in particular, close to home … to the point that you wonder: Just what did we do to deserve all of this? The tale of 2020 — and here’s your hat and here’s your coat and what’s your hurry getting down the road, you scoundrel of a year — can be told through survivors, and those who helped us survive. Modern American treasure Fred Rogers of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” fame, once shared, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” This quote rang so true for Middle Tennessee in 2020.
The pandemic made things more challenging, but Project Connect staff became trained in COVID safety measures and began implementing them proactively. The Nashville-based nonprofit has served many thousands of meals in North and East Nashville since March 2020. Many of those were delivered by volunteers to elderly and disabled residents.
We found an extraordinary number of helpers, young and old, rich and poor, black and brown and white, stepping in at a time when we needed them the most.
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