COVID-19 Response: How to Help

Ways to Donate to Resiliency Funds in Massachusetts

• Massachusetts COVID-19 Relief Fund: COVID-19 is taking a toll on Massachusetts communities, especially on the most vulnerable populations and the heroic essential workers on the front lines. The needs are pronounced and are felt across many cities and towns. The healthcare system is under duress, families are struggling to get by, businesses are shuttered and resources are limited. So many have reached out to help knowing our fellow residents and neighbors need help more than ever. For more information and to donate, click here.
• Family Aid Boston: Family Aid Boston serves nearly 2,000 children and parents in the area, providing them with food, shelter, and basic necessities like toiletries, diapers and personal hygiene products. Larry Seamans, the organization’s president, notes the particular vulnerability the homeless at this time. For more information and to donate, click here.
• United Way – Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley: In Massachusetts, two in five workers lack sufficient savings to withstand a sudden loss in wages. With public events, schools and workplaces shuttering as the pandemic unfolds, hourly, low-wage workers will experience unprecedented financial hardship. Our COVID-19 Family Support Fund will help hourly, low-wage workers weather the losses from this pandemic. For more information, click here. To donate, click here.
• City of Boston – Boston Resiliency Fund: The Boston Resiliency Fund is the City of Boston’s effort to help coordinate fundraising and philanthropic efforts to provide essential services to Boston residents whose health and well-being are most immediately impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. We are also working to help first responders and critical care providers. The emerging priorities of the Boston Resiliency Fund are to provide food for children and seniors, technology for remote learning for students and support to first responders and healthcare workers in the City of Boston. For more information, click here. To donate, click here.
• The Boston Foundation: The Boston Foundation is actively seeking donors to the COVID-19 Response Fund. Your donations, large and small, will be targeted directly to organizations working most closely with communities feeling the greatest impact from the coronavirus outbreak - including seniors, children, residents without access to paid sick days, healthcare and gig economy workers, communities of color, immigrants and people with disabilities. For more information, click here. To donate, click here.
• Union Capital Boston – Individuals in Boston: Union Capital Boston established a one-time direct gift campaign to send Visa gift cards to those who need it urgently in the Greater Boston area. 100% of donations will go to families in need. In just one week, Visa cards for 374 families were ordered totaling $56,100 thanks to 398 incredible donors. For more information and to donate, click here.
• New England Grassroots Environment Fund: In times like these, social networks and community support are key for community resilience, especially for those most vulnerable to the many impacts of this pandemic. Recognizing this, the Grassroots Fund is making our rapid response Seed grant program available to grassroots groups responding to local needs and building resilience in their community in response to the COVID19 pandemic and associated events. For more information, click here. To donate, click here.
• Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program: BHCHP is working in close collaboration with our shelter and hospital partners, the city and the state to enact a swift, comprehensive and multi-faceted response. BHCHP has mobilized on the front lines to confront the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the most vulnerable. As this pandemic continues, we will incur significant financial losses, upwards of $1,000,000/month, as we continue and adapt our emergency plan, but we have no other choice to combat COVID-19. The commitment of our staff is unwavering and their approach to providing the best care possible to an often invisible population is brilliant and selfless. To view BHCHP’s COVID-19 emergency plan, click here. To donate, click here. 
• Parenting Journey – for parents and families: Food, rent, utilities, activities for children who are home from school — plain and simple, families need you. In March, we announced the It Takes a Village Emergency Fund to provide parents and families with financial support for essential items. We have more requests than we can fund and we don’t want to turn people away. The more we raise, the more families we can help, with 100% of your donation going immediately to families in need. For more information, click here. To donate, click here.
• Schott Foundation for Public Education: Schott created the Loving Communities Response Fund to support community-led grassroots organizations who serve youth and families directly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Your impact will be doubled! Each dollar you give will be matched 1:1 by a generous anonymous donor. For more information and to donate, click here. 
• Women’s Foundation of Boston Response Fund: In response to the COVID-19 crisis, the Women’s Foundation of Boston has launched a new fund to support women and girls in Greater Boston. In Boston, as in most cities, the most vulnerable are disproportionately women and girls: 65% of workers earning below minimum wage are women, 71% of Boston families in poverty are women-headed households without a husband/partner present and nearly half of Boston households are headed by single mothers. For more information and to donate, click here.

Volunteer Opportunities/Other Ways to Help

• American Red Cross: The American Red Cross is urging “healthy, eligible individuals” to donate blood or platelets to boost the country’s supply amid rising coronavirus concerns. The request comes as cold and flu season has presented its own challenges for the U.S. to keep up its blood supply.
• Boston Helps: Bostonians are good at coming together in times of need. That’s why we’re launching Boston Helps to solve a few of the local challenges stemming from the coronavirus pandemic. If you’re looking to help, you’ll receive an e-mail with the contact information and need of the person you’ve been paired with. You are then expected to reach out to that person. Click here to help. 
• Boston Cares: Boston Cares, a New England volunteering organization, has partnered with the City of Boston and Boston Public Schools to centralize volunteer recruitment and coordinate new efforts meeting the city’s evolving needs during the pandemic. Click here to view the volunteer opportunities. 
• MSPCA-Angell: MSPCA-Angell is asking for donations through an Amazon wishlist of canned and dry cat and dog food to distribute to local food pantries. The organization aims to reduce the burden for food insecure pets and people in the community. The MSPCA has donation bins set up outside the adoption center at 350 South Huntington Avenue in Jamaica Plain. For more information, click here.

Ways to Help Massachusetts Nonprofits

• Massachusetts Nonprofit Network (MNN): MNN is committed to serving the nonprofit sector and providing nonprofits with the resources and support that they need. Nonprofits need these resources and support now more than ever. If you or your organization are responding to nonprofit needs and would like to continue to supply your resources, expertise and advice to nonprofits and MNN members, please complete this form. MNN is looking to compile a list of organizations and businesses that they can direct nonprofits towards as they navigate COVID-19 and its effects. Reach out to Madeleine Morgan at mmorgan@massnonprofitnet.org if you have any questions. To learn more about the work MNN is doing amidst COVID-19, click here.

Ways to Donate to Resiliency Funds for Your Community

• Berkshires: The Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation's Neighbor-to-Neighbor Fund makes one-time emergency grants for medical and heating bills, food and other critical needs for people in crisis around our region. It operates through trusted social service, health care and other providers who direct these funds where they are needed most.
• Berkshire United Way and Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation established the COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund for Berkshire County.
• Brookline Community Foundation:  BCF Safety Net COVID-19 Response.  
• Cambridge: Cambridge Community Foundation's COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund to support vulnerable populations most affected by COVID.
• Cape Cod & Islands: Cape and Islands Major Crisis Relief Fund - A program of the local Needy Fund, which vets applications and distribute funds.
• Cape Cod Community Foundation:Community Response to COVID-19.
• Essex County: The Essex County Community Foundation is launching the Essex County COVID19 Response Fund. Details on the fund will be forthcoming. Donors may make contributions online and designate in the comments the name of this fund. 
• Framingham: The Feed Framingham COVID-19 Fund has been established to help ensure food access to vulnerable populations across the City of Framingham. All of the proceeds of this emergency fund will go directly to nonprofit organizations working to facilitate direct access to hunger relief efforts in Framingham. Established by the Foundation for MetroWest in partnership with The City of Framingham.
• Greater Lowell Community Foundation:  COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund.
• MetroWest: The MetroWest Emergency Relief Fund at the Foundation for MetroWest will award one-time operating grants on a rolling basis to nonprofits that are addressing the most important needs for any broad-based community emergencies that the MetroWest community is facing, such as natural disasters, financial crises, public health emergencies, etc.
• Nantucket:The Community Foundation for Nantucket is setting up two funds, one specifically to offset the cost of feeding our school children who qualify for free and reduced lunch, and the other will be an emergency fund that we process through our discretionary grant making fund to support our local nonprofits. 
• Newton/United Way of MA Bay & Merrimack Valley: Newton’s COVID-19 Care Fund.
• South Coast:The Community Foundation of Southeastern MA has established the South Coast Emergency Fund.
• United Way of North Central MA: Community Fund Stand United supports local residents impacted by Covid-19. Funds and provides food access and financial support to children and families impacted by work and school closures.
• United Ways of Pioneer Valley, Hampshire County and Franklin County: Established the COVID-19 Recovery and Relief Fund to provide aid and resources to those affected by the current public health emergency.
• Watertown Community Foundation: Created the Community Resilience Fund to respond to the impacts of the COVID-19 emergency.
• Western MA: The Community Foundation of Western MA has started a fund to help with urgent and longer-term needs.
• Worcester: The Greater Worcester Community Foundation has established a Covid-19 Response Fund where funds will be distributed by grants that will support the interim and long-term needs of organizations working with communities disproportionately impacted by the outbreak.

Donating Unused Medical Supplies

Donate medical equipment:

• COVID-19 PPE Procurement and Donation Program: Donate or sell personal protective equipment to support Massachusetts’ COVID-19 response efforts. Click here for more information.
• Cambridge Health Alliance: Cambridge Health Alliance is asking for donations of personal protective equipment. Donations can be dropped off 24/7 with CHA Public Safety at the main entrance of Cambridge, Everett and Somerville Hospitals. To learn more, click here.

Medical supplies/equipment hospitals are looking for:

• Surgical masks;
• Isolation gowns (disposable);
• Isolation gowns (reusable);
• Cleaning wipes;
• N95 or FFP2 respirator masks – small and regular;
• Ventilator circuit components;
• Positive Airway Purifying Respirator (PAPRs) and Disposable/Replacement Parts (hoods, battery pack, tubing);
• Thermometers: Infrared and disposable ones;
• PPE Hoods; and
• Lab items: disposable/replacement parts (hoods, battery pack, tubing), Viral transport media (BD universal transport, cat # 203942), RNA extraction kits (Qiagen RNeasy mini and mini plus kits).

Boston Medical Center:Click here to submit form to donate medical supplies/equipment. **To properly process and acknowledge your donation, please fill out the form before dropping off supplies/equipment. Click here to donate to BMC's COVID-19 Relief Fund. Click here to submit request to volunteer.

Brigham and Women’s Hospital:Click here to submit form to donate medical supplies/equipment. Click here to donate to Brigham's response to COVID-19.

Food Banks

• The Greater Boston Food Bank: COVID-19 poses an even greater threat to food insecure populations. Help ensure our neighbors in need can make it through these challenging times. We distribute food and resources directly to those in need through our more than 70 direct service programs that serve our most vulnerable populations. For more information, click here. To donate, click here. To request to volunteer, click here.
• Ethos: While the coronavirus outbreak poses health risks for everyone, officials have made clear that the elderly are particularly vulnerable. As restaurants close, grocery store aisles emptied, pantries get depleted, and older adults encouraged to limit travel and social contacts, food insecurity is a real concern for many Bostonians. As such, Ethos offers a number of programs and services to assist older adults through this crisis. Our seniors are at higher risk because many depend on services and supports provided in their homes or in the community to maintain their health and independence. On average, one in four older Bostonians is living in poverty and facing food insecurity. Further, nearly two out of three seniors are experiencing four or more chronic conditions, making them even more susceptible to COVID-19. For more information, click here. To donate, click here. 
• Fresh Truck Box Program: Since the suspension of our Fresh Truck mobile markets program on March 13th, our team has been focused on developing a new model for food distribution that reduces the risk of further transmission of COVID-19 while increasing food access opportunities citywide. Fresh Truck Box is a community-based food distribution in response to the COVID-19 crisis. The Fresh Truck box is designed for social distancing, citywide reach across Boston, and cost-efficiency. The mission of Fresh Truck Box is to provide food access for Boston residents throughout the duration of the COVID-19 lockdown and to support local businesses. The program is supported by the Boston Resiliency Fund. For more information, click here. To donate, click here.
• Project Bread: Project Bread is committed to preventing and ending hunger in Massachusetts. We provide access to food for people who are hungry today, while we work to break the cycle of hunger through advocacy, education, and community action. Project Bread is working around the clock —at the individual, community, and state levels—to respond to the needs of our community and ensure no one goes hungry during this period of public health and economic crisis. For more information, click here. To donate, click here.
• Worcester County Food Bank: Worcester County Food Bank (WCFB) is one of three Feeding America member food banks in Massachusetts. We’re dedicated to engaging, educating and leading Worcester County, Massachusetts in creating a hunger-free community – and we do this in two ways. First, we partner with others – food and fund donors, volunteers, business and community leaders – to provide donated food to neighbors who need it. To learn more and to donate, click here.
• YMCA of Greater Boston: YMCA is offering meals and other services to Boston school children during the school's closure and is asking members to donate their fees to the effort. All donations made to COVID-19 Response Community Programming will go to the YMCA of Greater Boston's Annual Fund, which supports areas of greatest need in our community: emergency care for the children of essential workers and preventing hunger so no child is hungry. For more information and to donate, click here. 

Ways to Help Massachusetts Restaurants and Food Service Workers

• Behind You Inc: This organization has previously been focused on restaurant employees who were out of work due to injury, but they've temporarily pivoted [to those whose work is impacted by COVID-19].
• Emergency Funds for Boston-Area Service Workers: Organized by Gabby Bonfiglio and Emily Beaulieu, who work at a Cambridge brewery “where many of our friends have just lost their positions and major source of income. It is devastating not only to us, but to so many others in this industry. We wanted to do something locally and immediately to support our community.”
• Help Camberville Hospitality Workers: This is a fund for the Cambridge and Somerville area hospitality workers. Most of us them unemployment and an uncertain future with the outbreak of COVID-19. Your dollars will be going directly into the hands of servers, bartenders, hosts, dishwashers, cooks and baristas to help them pay their bills and get through this scary time.
  Unemployment benefits are not enough for many to live off of and some of us aren't even eligible to collect them.
• Restaurant Strong Fund: The Greg Hill Foundation has teamed up with Samuel Adams* to support those from the Massachusetts restaurant industry who have been impacted by the Covid-19 closures. Together, they will be raising awareness and funds to provide grants to full-time restaurant workers in Massachusetts who are dependent on wages plus tips to cover basic living expenses and provide for their families.
• #LiftYourSpirits challenge: Take a video of yourself making a drink and post it on social media with the hashtag #LiftYourSpirits — then donate what you would have tipped at a bar or restaurant for that drink to liftyourspirits.org. The money will benefit the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation’s Employee Relief Fund, which supports restaurant, food service, and hospitality workers impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. The challenge was started by former New England Patriot Matt Light and KEEL Vodka.

Coronavirus Resource Center

The MSCPA is monitoring developments and has launched the Coronavirus Resource Center, which provides coronavirus information, helpful toolkits and resource links, to help keep our members and their firms, companies and clients, safe. Please check back often as we will be updating this page when new information is available.