This post will only be tangentially related to baseball, so apologies in advance.
We often post here in the BPs about how to help during a natural disaster, such as wildfires, hurricanes, etc. And regardless of which side of the political aisle you sit on, I think we can all agree that the current shutdown of the federal government, the longest in our country’s history, has reached disaster levels for those affected.
The shutdown started right before Christmas and we are now halfway through January. Federal employees are either being furloughed or asked to report to work without pay. This has led to, among many other awful things, employees sleeping in the parking lot of their work because they cannot afford the gas necessary for their commute.
Presumably federal employees will receive back pay at some point after the government re-opens. But that doesn’t cover workers in contracted jobs or those in industries supported by the daily traffic of government offices, such as restaurants, coffee shops, etc. These people will likely not be able to recoup their losses.
And regardless of the fact that some people will eventually get back pay, their bills are due now. Their cars need gas. Their families need to eat.
So, to the tangential baseball connection, former Oakland Athletic, current Washington National and all around Good Dude, Sean Doolittle, has put together a Twitter thread with links to organizations you can donate to to help get people through this difficult time.
The @foodbankmetrodc serves 500K people in the DC area each year & does ~3M meals in a typical January. But because of the gov’t shutdown, they’re expecting to provide 300-600K more meals this month, which could cost over $250K. Here’s how you can help: https://t.co/LryneYM4Ye
— Sean Doolittle (@whatwouldDOOdo) January 10, 2019
Click on the tweet to open it in another window where you can see the rest of the thread. These resources are primarily for the Washington, DC area, however you can help closer to home by donating to your local food bank.
If any of you have other links to organizations helping people out, especially here in California, please share them below. And if you are affected and in need of support, please let us know in the comments and we will do our best to help you out.