Org Focus: Youth writing
Grant Funding: Food distribution, vaccine clinics
Website: mightywriters.org
Click here to download a PDF of this profile.
Based on an interview with Sara Dickens-Trillo, Program Director, & Naomi Levecchia, Director of Development
The families we work with in southern Chester County come from Mexico and Guatemala. Little things that many of us take for granted, these families really need. When the pandemic hit, we found out a lot of our kids weren’t able to pick up their lunches from school. How can you put a child in front of a computer if they’re hungry? We thought we’d provide lunches first, and then when they had a full tummy we could focus on writing.
As the pandemic started closing everything, our families were losing their jobs. So we quickly escalated from lunches to produce boxes, meats, milk, eggs, dry goods. We added diapers, as well as wipes and period supplies. In Kennett, a lot of our families live in multi-family households, where the whole family rents one room. They don’t have beds; a lot of children don’t have their own blankets. So last year we gave out 400 blankets and 100 sleeping bags. And we gave away books, of course, because we’re a writing organization.
Then we found out our families weren’t getting vaccinated. We were watching the news stories about how Philadelphia was getting vaccinated, while the number of COVID cases in Chester County was exploding. Our families were scared of being deported. There were language barriers. The process was intimidating.
We said, to be able to have a healthy community, we have to get vaccinated. And we need to get people vaccinated in a way that is safe for them. Our food distribution in Kennett is a drive-through system that serves nearly 2,000 people a week, so it was a great place to test out a drive-through vaccination model.
We don’t see ourselves as any kind of public health organization; we’re just doing what needs to get done to serve our communities the most. These kids will remember that somebody cared and that Mighty Writers was there for them during the hardest time of their life.