Providing virus protection
Group provides kits to help combat COVID-19 in Arlington Heights
After working at a shelter in New Orleans in 2005 — the same year Hurricane Katrina devastated the area — Richard Carrington knew the importance of helping underserved communities.
And now that COVID-19 has impacted hundreds of thousands of people across the nation and in Pittsburgh, Mr. Carrington, now the executive director of Voices Against Violence and the leader of South Pittsburgh Peacemakers, is providing more assistance to local low-income areas.
On Friday, Mr. Carrington teamed up with with the Minority Emergency Preparedness Task Force to help residents in Arlington Heights, a low-income Pittsburgh neighborhood, by setting up tents at a parking lot at Cordell Place between 1 and 3 p.m.
The event gives residents the convenience of walking from their homes to pick up a free kit that includes reusable masks, hand sanitizer and other educational materials about the virus and prevention methods.
Free COVID-19 testing also was available by the Squirrel Hill Health Center and organized by the Allegheny County Health Department. The event was funded by the POISE Foundation’s COVID-19 grant and the Birmingham Foundation.
Within the first hour, more than 100 people had arrived.
Geraldine Cauley, a resident of the area for over 23 years, was among those who stopped by.
“I’d rather be safe than sorry,” Ms. Cauley, 51, said. “I’m glad they brought the resources here, because a lot of us don’t have transportation as far as cars to get where we’d need to go.”
Cynthia Jones, who was also there to grab supplies and take a swab test, shared a similar sentiment.
“Better safe than sorry,” Ms. Jones, 53, said. “This pandemic, after knowing how many people it’s already killed, and we’re able to get testing right here. Yes, I have to get tested. I don’t want to die, and I don’t want to see anyone else die as well.”
With around 300 total residents in the Arlington Heights area, the event’s organizer and task force founder, the Rev. Eileen Smith, hopes she’ll reach every single resident.
“Data shows that it’s disproportionately affecting the African American population,” Rev. Smith said. “It’s imperative to wear masks and people in low-income housing communities do not have money to buy masks, so a lot of them have been not wearing masks here, and I’m sure in other communities as well.”
Rev. Smith, who is a registered nurse, was working for the Pennsylvania Department of Health in 2008 when she created the task force as a response to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. She and Mr. Carrington share similar reasons for wanting to help out low-income communities in the
Pittsburgh area.
Mr. Carrington specifically recalls serving food to Hurricane Katrina survivors in New Orleans for two weeks in 2005. He noticed that community service events were located farther away from predominantly Black, low-income communities.
He said he served food at malls, which were inaccessible for the impacted residents. “By the time they got there, [the volunteers] were only handing out two bottles of water,” he said, and “they had to walk 5 miles back home.”
The decision on where to locate the help sites was prejudiced.
“They weren’t setting up in [the Black] communities because 99% of the people are middle-aged white people who don’t want to be in this environment because of fear,” he said. “So you put those volunteers where they feel safe. That leaves these communities underserved.”
When restrictions lift, Rev. Smith plans on organizing classes about healthy eating, diabetes, heart disease, stroke and other types of risk factors that she said significantly affect the African American population. For the future, she is prepared to come back and do it all over again.
“We’re prepared for the second wave to come,” Rev. Smith said. “We’ll be back.”