NeighborWorks America's network organizations pivoted quickly over the last year to make sure their residents were safe. They provided rental assistance. They provided food. And some even partnered with health departments to respond directly to the pandemic. 

Renae Muscatell is standing outside in a Hannaford Supermarket parking lot in Bangor, Maine. The temperature is in the upper 30s, but with the windchill, it's much colder. It's November, which means it's time for the annual Turkey Drive.

Melodee Lister enjoys being around people. She was looking for something to do where she could be with people but, because she's a person with a disability, something where she could sit down. A friend told her about volunteer transportation at Kennebec Valley Community Action Program (KVCAP), a NeighborWorks network organization in Maine. She gets reimbursed for her mileage, she says. But the main reason the program was the perfect fit for Lister? "I like to help people."

You can't shelter in place if you don't have a place to shelter, says Stacie Birchett, vice president of external affairs at the Better Housing Coalition. The Richmond, Virginia-based NeighborWorks organization is working to ensure their residents are able to keep their housing during a time when many are losing jobs or working fewer hours due to COVID-19. 

Every weekday morning for the past five years, you'd find Mattie Shandon in the kindergarten wing at Chestnut Grove Elementary School in Decatur, Alabama. A volunteer in the Foster Grandparent Program through Community Action Partnership of North Alabama (CAPNA), she would unpack backpacks, go over math problems and make sure her group of students knew the sound every letter of the alphabet was supposed to make.

NeighborWorks organizations have spent the past few weeks drafting new policies and communications in the wake of the COVID-19 virus and figuring out ways to share them quickly with their staff, their community, other agencies and one another.

As they check to make sure their residents are safe, NeighborWorks network organizations are finding other, concrete ways to deal with issues that accompany social distancing and economic well-being in the wake of the COVID-19 virus. In Maine, Avesta Housing is looking at ways to keep senior citizens connected, while in New York, Asian Americans for Equality Inc. (AAFE), is moving quickly to help businesses harmed by racism and xenophobia. 

“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind and flight to the imagination.” These are the words of Plato, and centuries later, music continues to be a building block of community-building and engagement.
 
Two members of the NeighborWorks network offer good examples of how the universal attraction of music can be harnessed to bring people together.