Photo courtesy of IMPACT 211 Crisis Call Center
The COVID-19 pandemic has sent shockwaves across Milwaukee and charities are responding to the increase in need with dedication and generosity.
On April 27, Bader Philanthropies gave a $100,000 grant to the IMPACT 211 Crisis Call Center, according to a company press release. It was a part of the foundation’s grants of $1 million to locally based charities since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The foundation continues to give money almost weekly to both organizations addressing the pandemic and those focusing on more general needs of the community, says CEO of Bader Philanthropies Daniel Bader.
“Our goal is to help Milwaukee be a better community and help to grow and evolve,” Bader says. “We particularly focus on serving vulnerable populations. That is what we have always been about as a foundation.”
IMPACT 211 is a crisis call center that connects callers from the Milwaukee area 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week to over 20,000 resources across the state, helping with food needs, mental health and drug abuse intervention, and a variety of other services. IMPACT 211 has been on the front lines of the pandemic fielding an increase of calls from those in need.
We are a place in the community where we feel the vibrations of what’s happening, says John Hyatt, president and CEO of IMPACT 211. “When it [the COVID-19 pandemic] started to become more real and they said, ‘hey look, we are canceling all of the sporting events,’ we felt that vibration and people were calling, when you couldn’t find toilet paper, when the governor issued the stay at home order the calls all surged. They surged periodically when new things are happening.
“COVID-19 has made everything worse,” Hyatt adds.
IMPACT 211 has continued to answer calls that they originally would have received but notes a 25% increase of calls involving food security and a 40% increase involving mental health as well as from “people who never thought they would have to make a call to us in their life,” says Hyatt.
As staying at home became more necessary, finding resources became harder for people in need, leading Bader Philanthropies’ decision to give specifically to an organization that connects people in need to resources.
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“It was really a response to people needing to find support systems for their lives, of course, people are no longer able to go to agencies and get the services that they were accustomed to getting,” says Bader. “It [COVID-19] has changed life as we know it and one of the things that happened because of stay-in-place a lot of the people who used to volunteer and provide assistance can no longer do that.”
The grant allowed for IMPACT 211 to hire three more staff members to help with the increase in calls and provide their employees with the necessary technology to be able to work from home themselves.
Bader Philanthropies has continued to give to more than 35 organizations amidst the pandemic and Hyatt is grateful for their generosity and the support of the community.
“There is a heart in this community. It is invisible to a lot of people, but when you are in need—it’s food pantries, it’s housing, it’s mental health and substance abuse, it’s diapers and infant formula—this community comes together and we really look out for each other,” Hyatt says. “To me, this is just another example of how people can come together and get it done.”
