THE REVERE ADVOCATE – FRIDAY, APRIL 17, 2020 Page 5 ~ OP-ED ~ Helping Hands and Selfless Acts Our Community at Its Best By Mayor Brian M. Arrigo T he Easter Bunny joined our team this past Saturday, touring the City and bringing a much-needed dose of happiness to homebound families and residents who waived from their windows and porches. While the Easter Bunny was probably the most prominent and popular personality to enlist in our city’s battle against COVID-19, I can tell you without hesitation that the Easter Bunny is but one of an aweinspiring group of individuals who have mobilized to make sure that the people of Revere are not alone in confronting the most daunting task in our lifetimes. Back in February, when the general public still viewed “COVID-19” as an abstract peril looming somewhere in the future, we established a COVID-19 Emergency Response Team to manage the City’s actions. Everyone anticipated a challenge. Everyone knew we were headed into unknown territory. No one stepped away from the task. Six weeks into the crisis, and facing what may be the most frightening stretch of virus-related hardship over the next week or so, our Emergency Response Team has worked tirelessly to guide Revere through the multitude of hazards that now dominate our lives. I hesitate to name the individuals who have given of themselves, for it would be inevitable that I would inadvertently omit a key contributor. But I want to share with the public what I am seeing every day: • Dozens of city employees steered from their usual routines and managing, instead, a wide range of critical functions to make sure that our city’s businesses, people and operations continue to function smoothly amid the confusion and mystery of COVID-19. • Administrative staff who ordinarily attend to the necessary paperwork and procedures of municipal administrative infrastructure have become Supply Co-ordinators, hunting down and indexing the city’s stock of vital Personal Protective Equipment. • School nurses, accustomed to the maladies and misfortunes of our students, have become medical detectives maintaining crucial communication with COVID-19 patients and performing the critical tracing process to figure who an infected resident recently interacted with. • Teachers, shut off from their students and teaching remotely, are spending their free time working at food pantries. Another group of teachers banded together to raise money through a GoFundMe page that will provide relief to families in need. • Staff in our Recreation and Senior Services Departments have teamed with the City’s Wellness Department to organize and oversee a vast outreach program to make sure that our city’s underserved and vulnerable populations are aware of resources and in contact with municipal services. • Our Health Department has taken on the massive duty of digesting all the information that pours from the state Department of Public Health, applying it to Revere’s needs, developing safety-based Orders and then enforcing those Orders every day. • In addition, the Health Department has coordinated with the Fire and Police Departments to organize large-scale COVID-19 testing for first responders. • Hundreds of volunteers who are making telephone calls to our senior citizens to check in on their needs and, in some cases, just to provide a few minutes of welcome social contact. • Other volunteers deliver food and necessities to those unable to venture outside for fundamental provisions. • Still other volunteers are working with City staff in setting up and manning food pantries. • School cafeteria workers who have not missed a beat in preparing meals and making sure Revere school students who rely on our school system will continue to be nourished. • Our Economic Development team is assisting businesses that have gone dark during the crisis, while also proOP-ED | SEE PAGE 15
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