Sharing information, resources and support during the COVID-19 is the aim of a local support group.
The Facebook group COVID-19 Community Support/Help For Bridgewater and All Surrounding Areas is administrated by Jessika Hepburn, from Lunenburg, and Jessica Wamboldt, from Bridgewater.
Hepburn had been looking to see if there was a group similar to one being run in Halifax and started asking around. She was told about a small Facebook group that had been started by Wamboldt in Bridgewater and reached out to her.
“I asked her if she wanted to expand the group and add more supports,resources and coordination and she was super excited about that so we have been collaborating ever since,” said Hepburn.
The vast amount of information being put out there including from both the provincial and federal governments can be overwhelming. Hepburn says that when there is a crisis people immediately want to help and they don’t know how.
Many of the sources talk about the importance of caring for neighbours but she noticed there was no mechanism in place to do that so it was important to find a way to organize help. There was also a concern about vulnerable groups in the community including people facing homelessness, single parents, people on disability and people living in low income housing.
“I hadn’t seen a lot of supports that were directly targeting those groups, that’s the real reason I wanted to do this,” she said.
The response to the group-which numbers almost 1200 members-has been positive but recently Hepburn has noticed that there is a definite shift from people wanting to care for their neighbours to anger and mistrust. She says it isn’t just in this group but something she has also noticed in other groups where conversation has changed to people checking up on their neighbours to make sure they are following quarantine.
“I’m hoping with this group we can build on that community. Dr. Strang said that hopefully we can do this in a way that builds community and doesn’t break it down. I’m hoping we can shift things back to that place where people really want to take care of each other and feel we have the tools to do so. Of course you want to protect your neighbours and keep your eye out and make sure people are safe, but I hope your first impulse would be to take care of each other,” she said.
