Margaret Humphrey, Uptown Clubhouse Member, Vail Board Member
Every day gets a little easier but it’s been tough, with COVID feeling isolated and disconnected from the world. For a while I was overwhelmed and couldn’t do anything. Now Zoom meetings have helped tremendously. At least twice a day you’re connecting with people and listening to people you haven’t seen for quite some time. It’s a big help. It feels good.
I’m proud, as a board member, of all the employees stepping up in the middle of a crisis and enthusiastically engaging in changes, basically overnight. The leadership team is doing an excellent job in coordinating everything in a short time. The Vail Uptown Clubhouse called me, and all members, and kept in contact with people and have connected with people we haven’t heard from in long time. And we’re doing online enrollment.
Vail Place is an extraordinary organization. We have an extremely good board and leadership. While other agencies have furloughed staff or closed, we’ve adapted quickly and are reaching out in new ways that we wouldn’t have thought of before. As a member, I feel so blessed to have found Vail Place.
And I’m excited about the new ways we’ve found to reach out to folks that we can continue to use after we reopen so we’ll be able to hear from people who can’t make it to the Clubhouses – maybe because their mental health is too bad and they can’t get out and about; or someone who’s convalescing and can now plug into meetings daily instead of feeling isolated or alone waiting to recover.
B.C., Uptown Clubhouse Member