Apr 29, 2020 | News
Lindsey Tabor, Communications and PR Manager, Hispanic Alliance
by Lindsey Tabor, Communications & PR Manager, Hispanic Alliance, with Sharon Purvis
The Hispanic Alliance was born as a network of people within the Upstate’s Hispanic community, along with individuals—educators, pastors, and others—who work in and with that community. That network became a non-profit, and ten years later, the network is more than 2,000 strong and counting. With community teams around four pillar areas—education, financial stability, health, and legal services—the group seeks to connect Spanish speakers in the Upstate with the resources they need.
Q: Tell us about your ongoing interventions and how they’re impacted by COVID-19.
When COVID-19 hit, we knew there would be an immediate need for trustworthy information. We knew that without a vocal advocate, the needs of the Hispanic community could be muted amidst many competing concerns. Though heartbroken to cancel our Community Team events, we pivoted immediately to a massive outreach and communications push. We are collecting data on needs reported by Hispanics and those who serve them through our COVID-19 Community Survey of Needs, as well as our outreach staff’s documentation of community calls. We successfully convened our four Community Teams virtually, and our April Network Meeting had record-breaking virtual attendance. All these sources feed our new bilingual COVID-19 resource webpages, and weekly newsletters to spread the word to the community. For those who lack internet access, we are partnering with local Hispanic businesses and essential services to provide our information flyer to families.
Q: You told me that you’re finding that the Spanish-speaking community is severely under-informed about the virus itself, precautions they need to take, and health, financial, educational and legal resources available in Spanish. What are some things that employers, churches, educators, and agencies who work with this community can do to help disseminate information?
Trust is the most valuable currency of the Hispanic community. An important step for allies is to form relationships with “bridge builders,” people who speak the cultural “language” of both the Hispanic community and mainstream American culture. This may be a bilingual pastor of a Spanish church, or an ESOL teacher, or a Hispanic outreach specialist.
Also, take time to translate. Contract a translator or find bilingual volunteers to translate your most important announcements and materials and then spread the word using media popular with Spanish-speakers. Many are getting their news and information from social media apps and Facebook groups. Local Spanish radio is also a tried and true form of communication.
And remember that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel! Know where to refer Spanish speakers for information and personal guidance in their language. Our Hispanic Alliance Outreach Coordinator (864.256.0760) welcomes calls and is adept at referring folks to the resources in the community that will meet needs and help them feel safe. English speaking “allies” can also find a wealth of bilingual resources at our English COVID-19 landing page.
Q: You completed a survey earlier this year of needs within the Spanish-speaking community. Can you talk about what some of those needs were and how they might be compounded or at least impacted by the pandemic?
“Hispanics in Greenville,” released in early in 2019, revealed that 83% are first-generation immigrants—they were not born in the United States. The majority have a variety of immigration statuses, including 36% who are undocumented. This fact informs the interpretation, both of our assessment results, and how we understand our community’s current struggle with COVID-19.
Hispanics in Greenville may not understand the basics of the American financial, legal, healthcare, and education systems. They just don’t have the experience that natives take for granted. This leads to underutilization and distrust of banking services, lack of access to legal and health services due to language and cost barriers, lack of personal experience with the public education system of their children, and many legal and practical barriers to resources. Lack of information leaves Hispanic families vulnerable to scams, misinformation and rumors, and means that their hard work will not pay off for them in the form of increased stability, the same way it does for those born in the US.
At least 21% of local Hispanics live in a household making less than $25,000 annually (below the poverty level), and only a third of our participants reported saving for emergencies. Any job loss or cut in hours due to the pandemic would leave these families with no safety net. That is what we are seeing with our current survey of needs, as well as requests coming to our Outreach Coordinator—financial worries due to a lost job, and corresponding food insecurity, are becoming more pronounced as we track these needs through April. Hispanic business owners may have less awareness of loans that can help their business, and face greater communication barriers when applying for these through their banks. Our community is at risk, and fewer tools are offered to them to maintain stability.
Q: What else do you want people to know about how the Hispanic Alliance and the Spanish-speaking community is responding to this crisis?
Among the 10 most common industries for our local Hispanic workers are construction, cleaning services/hospitality industry, manufacturing, food preparation, and healthcare. We also know that Hispanics disproportionately keep our agricultural markets afloat (though this is a population that was harder to reach for our assessment). These jobs are either essential services, where Hispanics will be working longer hours, further exposed to COVID-19, or they are industries that have been wiped out, such as our hospitality industry. At the same time many of these Hispanics, whose work was and is keeping the U.S. economy afloat, are prevented from receiving unemployment insurance, aid from the IRS, and help from many locally run agencies who rely on government funds.
Nevertheless, the Hispanic community is leaping into action to keep the entire community safe and moving forward together. We are currently sharing some of these stories in social media format on Instagram/Facebook @HispanicAllianceSC. There is more to come as we continue to find innovative and collaborative ways to meet needs that will continue to exist long after social isolation.
Apr 29, 2020 | News
by Michael Cunningham, Vice President for Advancement, AnMed Health, with Sharon Purvis
AnMed Health, Anderson County’s largest employer, has been serving Anderson and surrounding counties in the Upstate and Georgia with comprehensive healthcare for over 110 years. With its mission “to passionately blend the art of caring with the science of medicine to optimize the health of our patients, staff and community,” the hospital, like hundreds of others across the country, is facing an unprecedented challenge in COVID-19.
Michael Cunningham, VP for Advancement, AnMed Health
Q: What staffing changes have you made during this health crisis?
Like all upstate hospital systems we’ve responded to reduced volumes by making some difficult temporary staffing decisions. These include reductions in some team members’ work hours; reductions in the salaries of all individuals in the organization with the title of Manager and above, which includes the Executive team; and finally, some team members were furloughed.
Q: What procedural changes have you made (sanitation, etc.)?
There have been a number of substantial operational changes but perhaps three of the major ones are visitation, staff and visitor masking, and elective surgeries. AnMed Health’s new visitation policy allows three circumstances for a visitor to accompany a patient: End of Life situations, Labor and Delivery, and the parent or guardian of a pediatric patient. We now also require all employees as well as guests and those coming for appointments to wear a mask upon entering any AnMed Health facility or practice site. We have temporarily suspended most outpatient and elective procedures, but we plan to revisit this change in the next week. Finally, we have shifted a tremendous volume of our physician practice visits to e-visits.
Q: Do you have the supplies you need?
Thanks to a tremendous outpouring from the community and our local businesses, as well as the almost around the clock vigilance of our supply chain professionals, we have been able to maintain the bulk of the supplies we need. We are still struggling with gaining access to the materials to conduct rapid in-house testing.
Q: How are you handling your emergency services?
We screen every patient upon entry to our ED with questions around travel history, potential community exposure, and other clinical questions. In addition, we take their temperature and then mask the patients. Family members are not allowed to accompany patients except under special circumstances and our staff in the ED all utilize appropriate PPE. Finally, we maintain close communication with all of the EMS providers in the community, allowing us to begin the triage process for patients brought in by ambulance prior to them arriving.
Q: What is your normal, pre-COVID bed occupancy rate vs. now?
Prior to the COVID 19 pandemic, our average daily census at our Medical center was approximately 275–290 patients. The past several weeks we’ve seen that average daily census drop to 165–180 patients, which has led to the staffing challenges.
Q: What partnerships have you formed to help deal with this outbreak?
We’ve worked closely with our local governments and the representatives of our state and federal government, our not-for profit community, our local school districts and technical school, our independent physicians, nursing homes, and our local businesses, just to name a few. This pandemic is more than any single entity or organization can address. It takes a team approach and we believe our community has assembled a great team to meet needs and be innovative in our problem solving.
Q: What is the biggest thing you need from the community right now?
Vigilance. We feel strongly that continuing to practice responsible social distancing as well as good hand hygiene is critical. It’s the thing we can do as individuals that will have a huge impact on how quickly we can lessen the impact this has on our families and communities.
Apr 29, 2020 | News
Clemson University President James P. Clements
These are extraordinary times for all of us in higher education, for our country and, indeed, the world. I never imagined that we would be heading into what normally is among my favorite weeks of the year—May commencement—with virtually no one on our campus and no graduation ceremonies planned.
I have been struck over the past several weeks by just how much I miss our students and the energy they bring to campus. They are the reason all of us at Clemson University come to work every day, and their absence has made me appreciate them even more.
This isn’t the end to the academic year that any of us at Clemson wanted for our students, especially our Class of 2020 graduates, but I can’t help but be proud of the way the university and our students have responded to this unprecedented crisis.
I’m blessed to have great teammates across the university who continue to work every day—and many nights—to deliver on our promise of providing a world-class education to our students. Over the past six weeks, our faculty has moved mountains to provide online instruction to our students, while our staff has navigated more complex, real-time logistical challenges than I can count.
They’ve done it all with two goals in mind: The health and safety of our university community and the education of our students. And while we have, in my view, been extremely successful on both counts, our work is far from finished.
Clemson, like other universities across the state and nation, already has turned its sights on the upcoming academic year, which brings with it far more unknowns that we usually face. Just as communities and states are grappling with how best to “reopen,” universities are working through similar challenges.
We don’t have it figured out just yet, but if the past two months have confirmed anything it’s that the Clemson Family is up for a challenge. We are moving ahead with a goal of returning to campus in the fall, but with the knowledge that our new normal will almost certainly look different than the recent past.
As with all the decisions we have made thus far, our work to reopen the university to traditional instruction and on-campus activities will be guided by the best science and data around the pandemic. Nothing is more important than the safety of the Clemson community, and by extension, the Upstate communities our students and employees call home.
The last few months have been the most challenging in my 31 years of higher education, and the coming months are likely to provide more of the same. Even as I say that, however, I’m optimistic about the future for Clemson and our ability to weather this extended storm. We have the people and plans in place that we need to come out of this strong and in a position to resume the upward trajectory of this great university.
I am beyond grateful to our staff and faculty for their efforts to safeguard the well-being of our community, ensure the academic progress of our students and prepare the University to emerge from the crisis strong.
I’m also in awe of our students, especially those who will graduate this spring. Their spirit and determination are an inspiration, and they are the reason we all get up every day and do what we do.
Jim Clements, President
Apr 28, 2020 | News
Ten at the Top (TATT) has announced the addition of Justine Allen to the position of Program and Event Coordinator.
Her role will be to continue building the capacity of Ten at the Top’s task forces and working groups that have an ongoing focus on collaborating to address regional issues. Those groups include the Education Spectrum group, which has been addressing the teacher shortage in South Carolina and is now working on a statewide portal to enter the profession, along with the Teach at the Top campaign; the Senior Issues group, which is exploring issues around an important topic of growing concern as our population ages; the Upstate Entrepreneur Ecosystem, which is made up of organizations and entities that support entrepreneurs, and which is currently offering a weekly series of webinars related to COVID-19; and the Upstate Professional Planners, a group of city and county planners who convene to share best practices around land use and planning policy. She will also be working with the Ten at the Top board of directors committee focused on new initiatives.
Justine brings to Ten at the Top a background in event planning and management; she came to the Upstate originally to work as event planner, charity liaison, and volunteer coordinator on the BMW Charity Pro-Am golf tournament. With that experience, she will take the lead on TATT’s annual events, Pique and Celebrating Successes.
Justine attended UMASS Amherst and has a BS in Hotel, Restaurant and Travel Administration. She has worked as a catering director in hotels and event companies, as a purser/hotel manager on a small cruise ship, and as event planner, charity liaison, and volunteer coordinator on the BMW Charity Pro-Am golf tournament. Most recently, she was the volunteer program manager at Dining for Women’s Greenville headquarters. She lives in Greenville with her husband, Steve, and daughter Gabby.
“Justine started at Ten at the Top at a rather challenging time,” says TATT executive director Dean Hybl. “Although we have not worked together in the office yet, she has done a great job of connecting with our team and with the initiative committees through Zoom, email, and phone calls.”
“I do look forward to being in the office with my new co-workers and having in-person meetings sometime soon,” Justine says, “but for now, we are doing our best to keep Ten at the Top’s initiatives moving forward while practicing safe social distancing.”
Apr 23, 2020 | News
Welcome Terence Roberts
Initiative/COVID-19 Updates
Congressman Duncan was unable to be with us today because he needed to be present for a vote, but we hope to have him with us next week, when he will likely have even better information for us.
Entrepreneur Ecosystem – Erin Ouzts, Upstate Entrepreneur Ecosystem
Erin’s featured work group this week was the storytelling group, who want to tell the stories of who entrepreneurs are. They are not just the high-tech wunderkind start-up types, who only make up a very small percentage of entrepreneurs, but any small business owner.
Information about previous weekly UEE webinars can be found here.
Scams & Fraud – Vee Daniel, Better Business Bureau of the Upstate
Vee expanded on some of the information in this post, with additional information for employers and businesses who might have employees paying bills or making purchases for the company. Her recommendations are to be savvy when it comes to product claims; buy only from reputable stores and websites (there should be contact information on the website); preferably to buy from local, verifiable sources; and not to fall prey to phone calls claiming to be from banks or utilities asking for financial information.
TATT COVID-19 Response Update Dean Hybl
- Upstate COVID-19 Link Repository Sharon Purvis
- Upstate Virtual Listening Tour—we will be trying to schedule these for mid to late May for each of the non-urban counties.
County Updates
- Abbeville – Tim Hall, from the City of Abbeville, discussed the challenges utilities have faced early on with the COVID-19 mandated changes to operations and navigating how to deal with citizens who don’t have access to pay online or by credit card, as we were required to close lobbies and drive thru services. Abbeville and other utilities continue to honor the non-disconnect for critical services under the “state of emergency” and they will be working to assist small businesses with flexible payment plans to help them get back to normal revenue streams once things return to normal. He also mentioned the upcoming revenue challenges for smaller rural municipalities that will not be fully known for a few more months as the result of industries being closed during this time along with not being eligible for any COVID-19 related expenses via federal reimbursement in the current aid packages.
- Union – Katherine Pendergrass, with Workforce Development in Union County, gave updates on the county’s 20-year comprehensive plan, which they have continued to work on and which should be complete in another week or two, and the county’s transit plan, which is coming together except for having a lead agency to take it on.
As good news from the county, she talked about Arthur State Bank, which assisted 40 small business owners with PPP loans, but there were also sad stories from other businesses who were struggling.
- Oconee – Annie Caggiano, from the Oconee Economic Alliance, talked about the disaster recovery efforts in the wake of last week’s tornado in Seneca. Eighty homes are a complete loss, with another 170 or so having sustained significant damage. All told, there were a couple of thousand homes with some damage, which is a significant number in a small community.
Borg Warner, which was heavily damaged by the tornado, is working hard to get the plant reopened, she said.
Other counties are providing a positive update and community challenge, shared by Sharon Purvis:
- Anderson (Pam Christopher, chamber of commerce) Encouraging: The county offices have been great about checking in with the municipalities and school districts daily, seeing what they need and keeping them informed
Challenging: The biggest thing is that even with all the money that’s been received, it’s not enough, and with the CARES Act money depleted, it’s left people and businesses needing more. Now they’re waiting for the next round of funding.
- Cherokee (from Ken Moon, Cherokee County Development Board) Encouraging: The Dollar Tree distribution center is hiring an additional 100 people to keep up with demand
(from Frannie Stockwell, Cherokee County Chamber of Commerce) Challenging: They are starting to see some businesses close, and others are unable to get the loans for a variety of reasons—either the funding is gone or they don’t qualify
- Greenville (Teri Brinkman, Greenville County Schools) Encouraging: Today we served the 500,000th free meal to a child in Greenville County. We have been providing free meals to children 18 and under since the first day of the closure, March 16. We have expanded our location from 15 original schools to 84 sites, 69 of which are delivered by our buses, which stick around for two hours to provide free WiFi access to students in the area.
Challenge: Parents are disheartened and overwhelmed trying to balance work, home, economic stress, and supervising school work. Students miss their teachers, friends, and routines. Teachers are finding it is harder to teach and engage students remotely and to really know what they need. Seniors are missing out on proms and are unsure what type of graduation ceremonies will be possible. Yesterday’s news that we are closed to in-person instruction the rest of the year was the right thing to do and not unexpected, but everyone is grieving just a little.
- Greenwood (Angelle LaBorde, Greenwood County Chamber of Commerce): Encouraging: We are seeing economic development activity plus existing industry project expansion
Challenge: We are working through details to create a recovery plan with all community partners.
- Laurens (Jonathan Irick, Main Street Laurens): For the most part, businesses have stayed active, embracing online and delivery options, and the community has been very supportive of both retail stores and restaurants.
Challenge: Lack of funding—only one business was able to get a PPP loan, and one got an EIDL advance. Also, there is concern about how things are going to look with social distancing in the near future—how to have events and draw in customers.
- Pickens (Cindy Hopkins, Easley Chamber of Commerce): Encouraging: People are adapting to a virtual/remote business model—it’s forced some to cross that bridge who had been reluctant, and they’re seeing an enhancement that will carry over to how they’ll do things long-term. Also, people are doing creative things to give back to first responders and medical personnel.
Unexpected challenge: Recycling centers/landfill have doubled and tripled their average intake—the average day is higher than the normal high weekend of spring cleaning, and they’re having to bring in extra containers and trying to man the centers.
- Spartanburg (Alex Moore, United Way of the Piedmont): Encouraging: The responsiveness of multiple organizations, and collaboration. Spartanburg is always good at that, but this is really shining a light on the willingness to work together. Also, amazing response to COVID relief fund: over $220K raised, mostly from corporate donors.
Challenge: Confusing information/misinformation, helping people sort through it. What’s open? What’s not open? What are guidelines?
Adjourn Terence Roberts
Apr 22, 2020 | News
Scott Carr, VP, Commercial Business & Communications, GSP Airport District
by Scott Carr, Vice President of Commercial Business and Communications at the Greenville Spartanburg Airport District
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. With that declaration, efforts to prevent the virus from arriving in the U.S. through a few select gateway airports were intensified to include all airports. By March 13, some communities across the nation began to implement stay-at-home recommendations, and companies halted non-essential travel. More communities implemented restrictions in the days to follow.
The impact of the declaration and community stay-at-home guidance was immediately felt by the aviation industry. Passenger traffic declined, advance bookings dried up, and commerce inside the terminal building dropped off dramatically.
In response to these conditions, the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport (GSP) immediately increased its cleaning and sanitation efforts over and above our normal 24/7 cleaning procedures. We added more hand sanitizers throughout the facility and placed signage in the terminal, in restrooms, and on flight information screens reminding travelers how to avoid the spread of germs. We briefed our staff on our procedures to address pandemics and evaluated supplies to ensure staff work areas remained clean and safe.
GSP set an all-time passenger record of 2.6 million customers in 2019 and reported higher traffic in both January and February of 2020. In the days following the pandemic declaration, the decline in passenger traffic was immediate. Within days, passenger activity at the nation’s airports declined by 95% versus the same period last year. Airlines cancelled flights but, in many cases, they were unable to do so fast enough to offset the rapid decline in passengers. Many flights routinely operated with one or two passengers or none at all.
Moving into April and May 2020, airlines have published schedules that are 70, 80, or 90% lower than they had originally planned just weeks before. A handful of airlines decided to stop operating entirely, as ticket bookings reached negative territory (i.e., the airlines were refunding more money than they were taking in).
Due to the nationwide decrease in demand for air travel, GSP made significant changes to our airport operation. Valet parking and shuttle services were suspended, we consolidated all parking operations from our eight lots to a single location—Parking Garage B—to conserve staff and utilities, and to ensure convenience for our travelers. Rental car facilities were consolidated but remained open for business.
Restaurants and retail stores were initially consolidated to our Grand Hall for passenger convenience. Then, further consolidations were made as passenger activity continued to drop and restrictions on sit-down dining were put into place. The Kitchen by Wolfgang Puck, Vino Volo’s Market Bar, the MAG Escape Lounge, Chick-Fil-A, and Palmetto Distillery were all closed.
However, our goal was to continue to provide a minimal level of food, beverage, and retail options for employees and travelers during this crisis. A variety of concessions remain available both before and after the security checkpoint. Those restaurants include DC3 Hotdogs, Flatwood Grill, Dunkin Donuts, and Baskin Robbins, and they all operate on modified schedules. The retail stores include Hudson News, Tech on the Go, and Upstate Marketplace.
As the airport is considered critical essential infrastructure, the facility must remain fully operational and ready to provide for the passenger, cargo, military, and general aviation needs of the Upstate region. So it was imperative that we find a way to remain fully functional while absorbing significant losses in revenue and activity. To meet the call, the Greenville-Spartanburg Airport District (District) that operates GSP suspended work on certain projects that could be delayed, limited purchases to only essential items, canceled non-essential contracts, instituted a hiring freeze, shut down water features, and instituted other energy-saving measures.
To ensure that the airport remains positioned to serve the region’s needs once travel returns, work that was already in progress on significant capital programs including the construction of a new aircraft rescue and firefighting station, the rehabilitation of Aviation Parkway, and the construction of Economy Parking Lot C were allowed to continue.
To comply with social distancing and to ensure that the airport continues to operate, District staff were placed on teams that alternate weeks either working from the office and remotely at home. Staff members who are unable to conduct their jobs remotely remained working at the airport but follow social distancing guidelines.
Despite the decline in passenger activity, cargo operations have continued at a brisk pace. COVID-19 disrupted the supply chains for many major manufacturers including those in the Upstate. Those disruptions, in tandem with the cancellation of passenger flights from gateway airports to and from China and Europe, also stimulated demand for air cargo services. At GSP, less than daily service to Germany increased to daily, and the airport handled charter flights in support of local companies.
Looking forward, it is uncertain when passenger demand will return to pre-COVID-19 levels. Much will rely on the consumers’ willingness to take vacations and how fast corporations across the region return to the skies. Airlines that have reduced service at airports across the country will be looking to those communities and airports that are quick to respond. To that end, they will add back service that was lost in this crisis and more, should passenger demand warrant it.
It is our hope that the threat of COVID-19 passes quickly and that we will again see passenger activity levels that warrant re-opening all the parking, restaurants, shops, and other passenger services that have been temporarily consolidated or closed as a part of this crisis. Since 1962, GSP has provided for the air service needs of the region and we will continue to do in the future. We hope to see you very soon at GSP.
