As COVID-19 continues to spread — shutting down schools, restaurants, libraries, and gyms — New Yorkers all over are springing into action and finding creative ways to come to one another’s aid, all while trying to maintain the appropriate amount of physical distance.

In a Clinton Hill 12-building complex with 1,200 units, for example, tenants are reactivating a network where each building has captains and some floor-leaders who will field requests and concerns from elderly or vulnerable tenants—and connect them to a flock of able-bodied volunteers who can help.

“If a neighbor needs some support getting groceries or something else, they can contact their building captain and they can be connected to one of the 60, and growing, number of volunteers we have ready to support,” explained 38-year-old Heather Benjamin, one of the complex’s organizers. 

Barbara Abrams, 75, is the captain of her building. She prides herself on knowing everyone in its more than one hundred units, and while she’s been looking out for her neighbors for decades, she believes that sense of shared community is even more vital in moments of crisis.

“We feed off of each other,” she said. “It helps a lot to know that your neighbors are here and you’re supporting them and they're supporting you in the same manner.”

What's happening in Clinton Hill is taking place in ad hoc ways all over the city: neighborhood-specific Google documents, spreadsheets, and Slack channels are all sharing resources and offering help in ways large and small. There are crowdfunding campaigns for undocumented restaurant workers and low-income artists;  there’s even a crew of bike messengers called the “corona couriers.” 

These efforts also reveal the yawning digital divide, with a younger tech-savvy generation who have easy access to multiple online communities, which are key during a pandemic where emphasizing physical distance is critical, and those who don’t. 

Barbara Abrams, standing, and Heather Benjamin, sitting in tan coat, with their neighbors

Gwynne Hogan / WNYC

To get around this in the Clinton Hill complex, they’ve devised a “two-tiered” communication system that involves emails and Google documents as well as old-fashioned phone calls and door-knocking, with the appropriate social distancing of course, organizers said. 

Some of these organizing efforts involve pairing up with senior centers, which have closed, and tapping into their pre-existing networks. 

Councilman Brad Lander's office, for example,  is training several hundred volunteers this week to make phone calls to a roster of vulnerable seniors connected to the senior center Heights and Hills. He launched similar efforts after Hurricane Sandy, but this is different, he said.

“That was easier to organize because you could just say show up because we had 500 frail elderly and we’ll figure out how to take care of them as best we can,” Lander said. 

Greenpoint resident Kevin LaCherra, 29, who works for the state court system, created a Google spreadsheet where North Brooklyn residents are listing their names and addresses and what they can contribute. Almost overnight, several hundred people had signed up. 

“Every time I look at it it’s growing,” he said. “Folks that are available to shop, check-in via Skype or a telephone call, [describe] their transportation capacity... whether they have a car, a van, a bicycle, a cargo bike, what their language skills are...and then all sorts of things—special education teachers and therapists and folks who are healthcare workers... it really runs the gamut.”

Like Lander’s office, LaCherra is looking to utilize the networks of senior and community centers in the area to connect volunteers with those who might need assistance. Some artists, musicians, actors, and freelancers whose gigs have dried up have suddenly found themselves with extra time on their hand—and now they are itching to get involved.

Simone Policano, a 25-year-old actor, who lives in Astoria, said auditions that had been canceled are being conducted remotely, for projects that may or may not move forward.  She spent a few days searching ways to volunteer and couldn’t find anything, then she and a friend set up Invisible Hands, where people can make requests to get errands and prescriptions, and they’re paired with a volunteer in their neighborhood who will collect what they need.

“The whole idea is that unfortunately because of the way this thing spreads, we want to minimize as much direct contact as possible,” she said, adding volunteers are told to wear gloves or use hand-sanitizer and leave items at the door. They have around 500 volunteers signed up to help, and they’ve just started filling requests for prescriptions and groceries.

Pilar Maschi, 49, who works at the City Parks Foundation, has spent the last few days ramping up efforts to organize her building, a 365-unit public housing complex on the Upper West Side. She started after seeing a post on Nextdoor asking neighbors to band together; she responded and began collecting names of volunteers. Now she’s working on flyers to post around her complex, that will ask people to call a number where their needs can be surveyed to see what kind of assistance they might need. 

She said historically, there’s been a disconnect between her NYCHA neighbors and the Upper West Side residents around them, but she’s already collected names of volunteers from the surrounding area who are willing to help her organize the public housing complex. 

“Maybe there’s some kind of healing that will come out of this, she said. “I mean, I don’t know yet. We’ll see what happens.”

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