Good morning everyone. I hope you and your loved ones are all doing well. The COVID-19 crisis is getting worse, and most everyone is trying to find the way to deal with it and help keep it under control. Today, I thought it would be a good idea to see what ways we have to help ourselves and others.
1. Global
Please consider donating to the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund at the following link. This fund is intended for coordination of the response, support of healthcare workers, and development of treatments.
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/donate
2. Local
The following PBS Newshour article by Courtney Vinopal offers suggestions on how to help others near us.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/how-to-help-others-in-the-covid-19-crisis
When you go shopping for food, please don’t buy items which are marked as WIC, so that they can be purchased by people who rely on the WIC system. Explanation and example in the following tweet.
In addition, please continue to follow social distancing rules, and try not to leave the house too much when you don’t need to.
* Additional advice, courtesy of SheleetaHam: “I would also recommend looking into your local United Way chapter. Mine already has a COVID fund set up.
Also check your local art foundation, check all your local foundations. Everybody is setting up funds to help in their own specific ways.”
3. Personal
We all need to take care of ourselves. Yesterday, filmcricket made the wonderful suggestion of sharing our resources which we use to cope and take care of our mental well-being. And so, added here are all the resources which many of you suggested. Thanks to filmcricket for the idea, and thanks to everyone who contributed.
- Mindful.org – “Free Mindfulness Apps Worthy Of Your Attention.”
- Insight Timer – a library of guided meditations.
- Tara Bach – resources on meditation and mindfulness.
- Calm app – an app for meditation and sleep.
- From the Calm app blog – “Take a deep breath. Let’s meet this moment together.”
- My Noise – background noises and interactive soundscapes.
- TubiTV – a wide selection of TV shows and movies, for free and with no registration required. Also available on Roku.
- Shudder – a streaming service of horror and thriller shows and movies, they are extending their free preview window to 30 days.
- Explore – Livestreams of animals and nature, as well as nature documentaries.
- And finally:
In addition, if you’re in a really bad place please talk to someone, here or elsewhere. A list of crisis hotlines across different countries can be found here.
Welcome to Wednesday! Be excellent to each other, try to keep things respectful, and don’t threaten Mayor McSquirrel. If you have a problem, you can contact the mods at avocadomods@gmail.com.