Dear Grand County friends,

A quick note to introduce ourselves: Just a few weeks ago, some friends and colleagues partnered with the faith community, county nonprofits and public health to recruit and mobilize a group of citizen volunteers to respond to the coronavirus health crisis in Grand County. That’s how the Grand County Outbreak of Kindness was born.

The Grand County Outbreak of Kindness aims to help close the gap and increase capacity where there are needs regarding accessing food or services, and to make simple grocery deliveries or errand runs to those at risk who need to stay home. Here is what we do:

  • Reach out to and assist people 60+ or medically at risk and unable to leave their homes with basic errands and shopping. (Yes, we will deliver!)
  • Recruit and train a volunteer force on behalf of Grand County and report to public health and the Joint Incident Command
  • Share relevant, accurate local health information with our network 
  • Promote and support agencies that combat hunger and sudden food insecurity, and provide food sharing opportunities each Saturday at 1 pm in various locations around the county when other services are closed. (Big Shooters, Kremmling; St. John’s, Granby; Rural Health Network, Hot Sulphur Springs; Church of the Eternal Hills, Tabernash; Grand Mountain Bank, Fraser; and Fontenot’s, Winter Park)

Our intake volunteers will be trained to refer inquiries to the appropriate services in our county as needed.

Need assistance? Deliveries? CONTACT US: gc.outbreakofkindness@gmail.com (970) 363-6460

If you’re able, we need you to amplify our message within your community and join us. Please share our contact information and services with your staff, team, clients or anyone in your sphere of influence who might need them.

  • Support us with donations of food or $ (payable to Grand County Rural Health Network/Outbreak of Kindness)
  • Follow us on Facebook and invite your network to do the same.
  • Spread the word throughout your personal, recreational, neighborhood, professional, and faith-based networks, *especially* to those who should be socially isolating and are reluctant to ask for help. 

We’re here for each other; we’ll be here when we all come through this. Thank you for your service to the community in these difficult times, and for helping spread the word.

Grand County Outbreak of Kindness

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Mr. DiGirolamo, words and labels can have severe consequences.  They can fuel the hate, fears, prejudices, and actions of misguided people.  Vilifying groups of people on the basis of their immutable characteristics, such as race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity, often inspires or is a precursor to violence.  In the U.S., since Trump promoted labeling Covid-19 as the “Chinese” virus, there have been over 2,000 reported cases of verbal and physical attacks on Asian Americans. How many more attacks have or will go unreported?   Trump is clueless about the consequences of his rhetoric. 

The Southern Poverty Law Center monitors domestic hate groups and other extremists (individuals) and exposes their activities to the public, the media and law enforcement.  Currently they are tracking more than 1,600 extremist groups, about 22 in Colorado. These groups include the following categories: Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi, white nationalist, racist skinhead, Christian Identity (name only), neo-Confederates, black separatists, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, anti-government militias, and general hate.  These organizations use words, labels and misinformation to build and reinforce their members’ hatred of the targeted group. Mr. DiGirolamo, please be more thoughtful about the rhetoric in your columns so that you are not sending dog-whistle reinforcement to such groups. Or is that your intent?

Regarding your inference that the names of diseases are often linked to initial locations, the Spanish Flu should be called the Kansas Flu. In the spring of 1918 over several days, soldiers at Fort Riley Kansas burned tons of manure, darkening the sky with smoke.  Hundreds of soldiers came down with severe flu-like symptoms and 48 died. Then the sickness disappeared. Asymptomatically contagious soldiers spread this flu around the U.S. before being shipped to Europe with the 1 ½ million American soldiers sent to fight in WWI. In Europe this flu from America reactivated and devastatingly mutated, eventually affecting soldiers from all of the countries in battle and then populations around the world. Spain was neutral in WWI and its press was uncensored.  Spanish journalists were the only ones reporting about the worldwide outbreak so the pandemic became known as the Spanish Flu. Mr. DiGirolamo, do your homework. You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. 

Melinda McWilliams  Fraser CO