 You've been such a neighborhood advocate for so long Yeah, yeah, and I imagine you're pretty busy. So Laura Hale Why don't we start with the one good deed fund and tell us about the fund and how you're rising to the occasion during this special period Sure. So I started the one good deed fund in 2014 it's been just about like a month or two shy of of six years and I originally Started it because I wanted to plant a garden for neighbors I had their grandkids were helping me with my green belt garden and I knew that they would love one But I didn't have the money to go out and buy a bunch of plants for someone else's green belt garden So I was like well There's gotta be a way to get these donated and there wasn't there was not a way to get it donated So I was like, well, this is really silly Some of the city used to have some neighborhood funds, but those had dried up So I did everything I could to stop myself from starting a nonprofit I went to every community nonprofit. I knew in burlington and Either people were going to charge a large percentage to be a fiscal sponsor or they lost their 501c3 Um, and I tried really hard to get someone else to do this Really hard, um, but no one bit. So I was like, well, I guess I'm starting a nonprofit And so I got two of my friends who are also amazing advocates to be my board members and fund raised a whopping $800 to start And filed for 501c3 and within six months we were giving out Grants for people who wanted to do something nice for a neighbor in the old north end and didn't have the funding to do it What kind of projects? What kind of projects were they to start? So to start at least someone knew that a person who worked at the laundry mat needed winter boots And so we paid for the boots and someone else Gosh, we've done so many someone was helping their neighbor fix their car and we paid for the battery Someone threw a neighborhood party and we played we paid for a lot of the supplies It's been all over the place. Someone else got a little free library And actually my wife built it So that was great and it's now on north street. And if you see the bright yellow one that's funded by the one good deed fund It's been all over and then two years ago I think we opened it up because we're getting a lot of requests and people who wanted to do something for Like that was a neighborhood project. It wasn't specifically for someone else So we opened up a opened up the grant so they could be neighborhood projects instead of just a one-on-one connection And we have planted community gardens. It's been a bunch of stuff that's come up There's a lot of things we were going to do that have now been put on hold Because of corona So I ended up Getting an email from our facebook message from a neighbor On saturday last saturday a whole whopping week ago, which seems like a million years ago now Doesn't it and yeah, I just I just can't even believe that there was a time before this now And she messaged me and said, you know, if if you started a relief fund I would donate and I just sort of sat at my desk and laughed. I'm like no way That's that's terrible. No I am a hundred percent sure that other people are going to step up It's not going to be that bad But at that point only the colleges had closed really like you really hadn't hit and then Sunday I started seeing things really go downhill and then on monday. I was like, oh crap, I got to start something Like we have funds in the one good deed fund bank account and they can't just sit there when people need them And I emailed my board members one of who was headed to florida to pack up his mom and the other one who was working remotely and I was like friends Here's something we really need to do and they both were completely supportive and Tuesday I wrote up the application and the giving guidelines and started some back-end fundraising So we'd have enough money to give out Had a conference call with my board members on wednesday morning and then wednesday afternoon. We went live And since wednesday afternoon I've given out $10,000 There were a hundred grants It has been A lot of work But a lot of need a lot of need and can you would you mind Describing what kinds of requests? Oh, yeah, so we The way the one fund the one good deed fund was already set up is and we don't give money directly to people We paid for like we paid if someone needed paint. We pay for the paint directly We pay vendors directly for the services. That's the way we're already set up. So that's how we kept going. So Um, well, I'd love to be able to just give people a hundred dollars That's just not the way we're incorporated with the IRS and it would have been really difficult So we've been getting grocery cards for people the number one thing that people are asking for our grocery cards Um, I have like I think the one good deed fund is personally fine As like city market in hanaford from the next month Um, and so I am really really up to date on which grocery stores you can buy gift cards for Online and how fast they process them and if they'll mail them directly it is something I never thought I would know Uh, we've paid a lot of utility bills. Um, I've paid Burlington electric vermont gas burlington telecom bills A lot of folks are asking for a hundred dollars to their rent So i'm just cutting checks and sending them to their landlords with their information in it Um, it's been it's been all over the place And would you how would you describe the folks that you're supporting? Are they people that are suddenly out of work or people for whom this is just the straw that Breaks the back Most people have been just out of work um, I'd say You probably like 70 percent folks who are just dealing with this for the first time and then maybe 30 percent folks Who have been doing this like been struggling and this was just the last bit A lot of folks are We're working Multiple restaurant jobs and sort of making do and living pay tech to pay tech but doing fine And then overnight they lost all of their jobs And they're panicked and rightfully so They thought that they had another like month of pay tax coming You know at least to make it through rent and food and folks just have no idea what to do So a lot of folks i'm working with have unemployment that they You know they've they've applied for unemployment, but you know unemployment's like we can't process your request this week We need to do it next week So there are folks that are doing all the steps that they've been told to do and they're still like I can't pay for groceries this week You know, what am I going to do till I get unemployment? And that's exactly why I knew we needed to do the fund because I knew there would be that gap You know it the there's always a gap when someone needs something and when federal and state stuff kicks in there just is And how what's the differential between what you've been able to give and the requests that you've gotten? I'm really clear on the application that we can do up to a hundred dollars right now And that through the end of april that's what we're going to be doing And if there's more long-term need after that We can figure it out from there But my hope was to put this together as sort of a stopgap So that other funds and other organizations and state and federal funding could kick in Afterward, I I I really hope by may we don't need to do this anymore because people have access and their jobs are back But you know, it's evolving so quickly. I have no doubt that You know, the folks were getting a hundred dollars and we could easily use a thousand but I just don't have that kind of access to resources. I'm I'm bringing in funds from donations just as fast as I'm giving them out I like literally have a spreadsheet at the bottom The spreadsheet is how much I've taken in versus how much I've given out and like It's always down to like four dollars like literally as soon as it's coming in It's going back out. So you're looking for donations as well as for applications. Yeah, both that absolutely I will make sure we find a way to fill in need if it comes in People have been very generous It's we've gotten everything from a couple of five dollar donations up to a thousand dollar donation. That was so great Most of them in the 50 to a hundred dollar range and that is it's all it's all so helpful Literally if someone sends me a PayPal or sends me a check I'm getting it right back out to someone who needs it in a matter of 24 hours And are you working with other agencies funders folks working in the neighborhood? How how connected are you to the other things that are going on? I'm peripherally connected. Um, it is these have been 12 hour days for me Um, right. I'm just literally me in a laptop and a phone Trying to make it through everything and coming up with systems so that I'm not You know, like I'm like, okay now I write checks in the morning And I get gift cards in the afternoon just to have some sort of system But um, I know mutual aid is just starting to come online in an organized way in burlington I just got an email about it this morning. So there are other groups that are starting to pick up that really haven't been able to so far So I think this week I like if you ask me this question Next monday. I have a feeling to be a very different answer than right now Did you see that cito set up the resource and recovery center? They've I got I've got an email about that. Yes. It where I saw the notice about it. I I haven't heard from anyone there So I'm not entirely they have me up on their website as a resource Which is lovely, but I haven't heard from anyone at cito. So I have no idea how that's going to get connected So as an activist in the neighborhood The old north end is you know, certainly It's not the wealthiest neighborhood in the city. There's a lot of need structurally all the time Do you have any thoughts about the implications I can tell you so this is the first time we've opened up the fund to all of burlington and that's because I knew that folks who were in restaurant and service work are everywhere and I Have seen it's actually it's been really surprising to me It's been an equal distribution across the city of where requests have been coming in for I think a little more in the old north end But that's just because we have such dense rentals um I'm really Really concerned about how this is going to shake out. I I You know, I I worked with someone who's out of prison and living in sober housing. It's halfway housing He has to pay by the week and he had a job lined up and it got canceled So he reached out to me and I'm I paid like a week and a half Of his rent, but if he gets kicked out he goes back to prison Right, like this is I talked to another woman whose ex partner pays child support as they show it and it's been all set up but her ex Lost their job and now she doesn't have child support which she was counting on so it's all these ripples That are going out. It's so connected in ways that people can't even see I I've seen so many people who are like You know my partner and I Both are you know one of them's a teacher who teaches workshops and not everyone's an artist or a musician And they've been making it work by piecing this all together But now they're both You know getting getting hosed on jobs and it's it's it's bad It's really bad. It's a lot of people and if you look at all these folks who are You know financially stable. Thank goodness for it because they're gonna have to be the ones to prop up a lot of folks for a long time I saw my own work dry up in half literally overnight And I'm just really lucky that I'm extremely cheap and then I've been you know saving some money that I I'm gonna be okay for a while but This the resources from the state and feds have got to come through fast because this is this is bad Yeah, I'm really worried. I'm worried about people going hungry Yeah, and when you think about how much we depend We're a service economy in burlington and in and vermont. This is really what we do. Yeah This is incredibly disruptive It is and I know that a lot of folks are navigating these systems for the first time And that's I've been trying to do what I can to help But these are not systems that make you feel great about yourself You know, these are systems that when you go into them beat you down So when you have folks that are already in crisis feeling like they just lost everything and now they're Dealing with unemployment for the first time we're trying to get the like wick or food stamps they're just doubling down on feeling horrible and You know, a lot of us a lot of my friends and I've been trying to shine a light on how broken these systems are for a long time and this is what we were dreading we were dreading seeing this overloaded and You know, I Makes me so sad. It just makes me so deeply sad that this is what it's taken for folks to realize that yeah Schools have been rationing soap for a really long time You know a lot of kids eat at school because they don't have food at home A lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck and you wouldn't know if I'm looking at them But there were three jobs You know, I don't know a single person who has one job You know, it's it's you know, everyone does something on the side even if folks think they do and the reality just wasn't apparent to people who weren't experiencing it And I mean I was the director of a network of free clinics throughout the state And I was there during the rollout of the aca And then their appeal of the aca and I saw that whole process and meanwhile we're just like people are literally dying because they can't access health care And that was the same fear. We're looking at it now being like yep This is what we saw coming and you can sound the alarm as much as you want But until people actually see the crisis they just I just don't think they could picture it I think it's just a of confidence that When the worst happened that we'd all be ready, but if you've been slowly defunding all your systems for decades, you can't be I think it's I think it's you know, I It makes me really sad for the folks who thought That there was going to be a safety net for them And there isn't Like you can't I wrote this in a social media post, but it's the best way I can describe it You know if if you get pushed out of a plane and you have a parachute But you don't open the parachute until a few feet before you hit the ground. It's not going to save your life It can be there the whole time, but You know, it's not going to matter It you got to have That parachute open as soon as you start to fall And I think that that's the problem is we've kept just sticking these tiny band-aids on stuff for so long that we think Yeah, okay There's food stamps if people get hungry without knowing You know folks have never had to use them don't know that you can't buy prepared food And you can't buy cleaning products and you can't buy diapers It's all this like you can literally buy like a few things with food stamps And so there is this complacency that we have all of these things in place and I think a lot of folks are shocked to see that it was never what they thought it was Laura, I'm so grateful that you are there on the front line doing this work It uh, it may seem like it's small But actually the one good deed fund is doing really important connecting with people as much as giving out these donations Thank you So thank you very much and um the pleasure Will you just remind folks if they would like to donate or they would like to apply the best way to get in touch with you Yep, so the best way is just through our website. It's one good deedfund.org And I have a link to all the kovat 19 relief stuff right in the front page Fantastic, that's great. So stay in touch with us if there's anything you want to report We're doing these shows daily And I really it's great to see you and thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for calling. Well zooming Oh, I had one more question. Sure. All right. You said you've been working 12 hour days. Are you doing anything to relax? Uh, really really bad sci-fi movies at night They're they're wonderful or cartoons. I'm a bobsburgers fan and so just Streaming the old seasons and knowing all the words coming out is the most relaxing thing although my wife will tell you that It's not relaxing for her She's only heard the same episode. It's like 10 times in a row now and uh, yeah, my apologies our marriage. Hopefully is strong enough to get through this A little like the rocky her picture show in the old days Yep, yep It's comforting because you know it and it's funny and it's everyone is happy in the end and some days you just need that Thanks so much. Yeah, thank you too. Good luck with the rest of these. Okay. Awesome. Bye Thanks, Laura. That was great