Making an Impact – COVID Drives Record Unemployment
In the Making an Impact series, clients and services are featured to expand awareness of the wide array of help available at JFS and to ensure donors understand the lives they touch and the difference they make throughout the community. Client names have been changed to protect their confidentiality.
School teachers in Minnesota have remained busy this spring, rapidly shifting their presence from the classroom to the internet, to continue educating Minnesota children even though schools have closed. But by late March, Minnesota’s substitute teachers suddenly found themselves completely out of work. There were no more classrooms of children waiting for them. Ellen and Mark, two local, full-time substitute teachers, turned to JFS for emergency financial assistance to help with rent.
JFS was able to ease at least part of the financial strain for Ellen and Mark with rental assistance to tide them over until their unemployment checks could arrive. We awarded Ellen $500 toward her April rent, and Mark $500 toward his May rent.