With the outbreak of Covid, we feared that thousands of individuals who benefit from MARVA’s legal aid would be left unanswered during an exceptionally stressful period. We continued to provide services, including one-on-one meetings via Zoom for elderly individuals experiencing abuse, individuals with dementia or Alzheimer’s, and people with psychiatric disabilities — and their families.

We discovered, to our surprise, an opportunity to access audiences that we had not reached until now, due to geographic distance — from Karmiel and Kiryat Shmona in the north, and to Eilat in the south. Furthermore, Zoom helped us establish relationships with individuals confined to their homes due to various medical or lifestyle factors.

In some cases, providing support for these individuals through a discreet and convenient platform served as the starting point for an ongoing relationship and eventually led to face-to-face encounters.

For example, we met with Olga, a woman in her 70s and a resident of Karmiel who is confined to a wheelchair and suffers from severe social anxiety in addition to physical limitations. She doesn’t leave her home and would never have sought help at MARVA’s offices. She needed urgent legal assistance, due to severe financial exploitation on the part of her son and her caregiver alike, and was able to get it due to the expansion of our legal aid to an online platform.

Despite the intensity and constraints of the Corona period, these connections with new individuals and communities provided us with a sense of hope that we can continue to make an impact.

The young people we serve in Detroit Horse Power’s equine-assisted social-emotional learning programs have the most layers of pandemic burden on their paths forward—including remote learning, household stress, losing loved ones, dislocation from normal support systems, and significant mental health challenges.

At the same time, we’ve seen unexpected opportunities to alleviate deeply rooted barriers that our students confront as young people of color entering homogenous equestrian spaces. The horse community is dominated by White, affluent horse lovers and we have always prioritized surrounding our Detroit students with diverse staff, volunteers, and board members to make sure they have authentic role models and a community that reflects their voice and identity.

The shift to hybrid and virtual programming would seem to risk deepening our students’ isolation, but we saw an opportunity to forge inspiring connections with equestrians of color around the nation. We are fortunate that this coast-to-coast network of exceptional role models took the time to share their experiences with our students and committed to ongoing mentorship throughout their journeys.

Coming out of the pandemic, we will continue to connect Detroit Horse Power’s work in our region to the national effort to create pathways for under-represented communities. These experiences have taught us how our own students benefit from broadening our perspective beyond the resources available in our immediate area, and we hope DHP can similarly be a resource to others around the country.

When people ask me about our Shutaf pandemic year, I generally say, “It was amazing.” Sure, it was challenging. Sure, it was financially complicated. But it also impelled us to be creative, more than ever before. It pushed us to set manageable goals and find ways to meet them. While we’ve always prided ourselves on our versatility — it’s part of our inclusive mindset as an organization — we had no idea what really awaited us during a year of constant shift and change. We worked on connecting, as meaningfully as possible from afar, with each other as a staff, as well as with our participants and their families. We shared our pandemic stories with the extended Shutaf family — our friends and donors — helping shrink the distance felt during an isolating time. We focused on staying real and in the moment, aware that thinking and working flexibly was key to surviving a time of constant change and uncertainty. I’m so proud of that. We finished an important project, the Shutaf Inclusion Guide. The pandemic fueled and fed this important work, allowing us the time to polish and prepare it for educators — formal and informal — sharing with Shutaf the mission of making the world a more inclusive place for all people of all abilities. Connecting with that community helped reinvigorate needed inclusive partnerships as well as deepen important conversations we all need to have — ones that will lead to better work, and with more understanding and commitment, supporting people of diverse needs.

— Beth Steinberg
Founding Director, Shutaf

I spent the last 10 years building a small organization, Just Imagine — constantly planning, fundraising, and programming. Because Just Imagine is so small, we’ve not yet reached a point where I can take a salary, so I also have a full-time job as a school administrator and a part-time job as a Varsity Girls Basketball Coach.

By March of 2020, I was exhausted. There was no way I was going to give myself permission to quit, but I was definitely questioning how sustainable the work was.
Then, on March 6, we went home from school for what we were told would be a two- week break. Two weeks turned into a month, a month turned into two, and it started to become clear that it would not be safe to send our students to camp that summer.

Initially, I was devastated. I was unsure what the summer off would mean for my organization, our kids, and the camps we rely on for scholarships. But as time passed, I realized just how tired I had truly been. For the first time in 10 years, I had a break. I wasn’t spending the summer shuffling logistics, traveling from camp to camp, and troubleshooting crises via cell phone and email. Everything was on pause, including planning for the school year ahead.

In the stillness, I gained a renewed appreciation for all that Just Imagine is able to do for our students. The rest re-energized me physically and mentally, and reminded me of the importance of taking care of myself so that I’m able to continue taking care of others. For that, I’m grateful.