Serving in a New Way

Like all community action agencies, Northwest Michigan Community Action Agency altered the way it brought services to the community. In the process, staff identified new ways to help people where they are and to serve them better.

“We cover a lot of geography,” says Kerry Baughman, Northwest Michigan Community Action Agency director, whose agency does more than 3,000 tax preparations annually for residents. “When we had to close the office last year, we were still in tax season, so we installed drop boxes where people could leave their tax information for us. We used technology more and did a lot of live online events to help people who had tax questions. As we entered the 2021 tax season, we expanded our strategies based on our experience in 2020.”

Kerry also finds there is a greater awareness of what the agency does in the communities it serves, thanks, in part, to a better connection with the emergency management team and county administrators.

“Because we developed a relationship with one of our counties,” she explains, “when it received CARES funding from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, the administrator called us because he wanted to use the funds to support our Meals on Wheels program.”

“There are still so many unknowns,” says Kerry. “For example, COVID is causing us to address how we support the needs of seniors and our aging population. So many are isolated and cut off from support systems. They are very vulnerable. We need to work with other agencies to see if we can create a system where seniors come in, and that one door gets them connected to many support services. We need to coordinate services more effectively and be sure we are not duplicating. Community Action is uniquely suited to implement programs because we have access to so many residents who are vulnerable and we form long-term relationships with them. We already have so many effective protocols in place such as food distribution routes. During COVID, those protocols became critical life lines so we could seamlessly provide additional support to those who needed it.”

“There was tremendous relationship-building at the county level,” she adds, “Hospitals, the health department, shelters, schools and emergency managers all found ways to share what was happening in the community. I never experienced that before. Now we’re looking at what we want to retain going forward.”