Disaster Recovery- Elders, San Antonio Puerto Rico

During the Covid-19 pandemic Proyecto La Nueva Esperanza continued providing services to our elderly participants from 58 to 94 years old living in San Antonio and nearby areas. Most of them are living alone or with poor family support, physical limitations, bedridden sick or with chronic health conditions.

The activities during the period from January to March 2021 were:

1. Delivered 1,970 meals at the elderly homes. The menus were varied and healthy so they can get balanced nutrients.  A housekeeper visits those in great need during the week.

2. The nurse went to 46 participant homes to monitor their health conditions, how they were managing their medications, and provided hygiene orientation and nutritional education.

3. Provided transportation in our official vehicle to their medical appointments, pharmacy, supermarket, governmental agencies, and to get the Covid-19 vaccines. With the participant authorization we were able to get them official documents, prescriptions, medicines, and laboratory results.

4. We purchased and delivered a fridge to a participant.

5. We were able to distribute boxes of drinking water, groceries, and medical articles for those in need because of their health condition.

6. Continue the distribution of the Covid-19 prevention kit containing hand sanitizer, face masks, face shield, and alcohol.

7. A participant was living in subhuman conditions and we were able to build him a room which made him very happy and grateful. Another participant living in similar conditions was moved to a nursing home.

Our services have been non-stop in order to keep our elderly in good health condition and to provide for their basic needs, especially emotional support as they feel that someone takes care of them in this critical period. We really appreciate the support of GlobalGiving and our donors who make all this possible.

            Even though, this period has been very difficult because of the Covid-19 pandemic Proyecto La Nueva Esperanza is providing the services to our elderly participants.  Distribution of meal during the weekends is very important so they can have a nutritional meal specially when they must stay at home for safety reasons.    We were able to delivered 1,918 meals during Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays to our 52 participants.

         The Case Coordinator visited them to verify how they were handling the restrictions and any other need they must have.  The nurse went to the elderly homes regularly to be sure that were in a stable health condition.   The housekeeper had priorities according to the Case Coordinator findings.

             Proyecto La Nueva Esperanza distributed a prevention kit to the elderly.  It contained masks, gloves, alcohol, hand sanitizer, vitamins, clothing, personal care products.  In order to keep the elderly safe, we picked up their medicines at the pharmacy.  One participant who must remain bed-ridden received a gel matress.

             We provided transportation to the supermarket for those who need to go for groceries but do not have someone who can take them.

             Up to this date, four (4) community elderly were still having house damages caused by hurricane Maria en September 2017 because they didn’t qualify to receive government aids.  We were able to seal roofs to avoid leekages, made doors and windows installation and other minor repairs.  They were very grateful because they were in a safe home finally.

             Our organization was able to support our participants and some community elderly thanks to GlobalGiving and the donors. 

Proyecto La Nueva Esperanza, Inc. continued providing elderly services during the time of Covid-19 pandemic.  Our office was closed because of the virus from March 15 until June 2020.   During this period the employees were working from their homes.  Follow up to our participants was done by phone, and in some cases our contact was an elderly relative. 

We coordinated the distribution of groceries to our 50 elderly participants so they could stay at home with some food. They received  vegetables, fruits, non-perished items four (4) times.  To prevent Covid-19 virus they got kits with alcohol, hand sanitizer, gloves and masks twice (2).  They also received hygiene items like soap, tooth paste, etc.  By this way the elderly had for their basic needs at home and should not be put at risk going out.

Our office was opened again in July 1, 2020 following the hygiene protocol previously made for the working areas and for the participant visits. During this period our organization distributed 1,332 lunches on Fridays, Saturday and Sundays to the elderly.  Until today all of our elderly participants are in good health.  

Beside the regular services, we verified if they received the federal incentive for the Covid-19 and if the Census 2020 document was completed.  We contacted the local Census office and with an employee they visited 17 participants to help them to complete it.   

Even though the difficult time because of the Covid-19 our organization has been very responsible managing the situation in order to protect the employees and our participants.  We appreciate the donors and GlobalGiving for their support.

Proyecto La Nueva Esperanza main mission is to improve the quality of life of low income elderly participants, most of them living alone or without someone who can take care of them.

We continued providing them with health follow up, a housekeeper and meal distributing until mid March when started the critical situation regarding Covid-19. Our personnel provided orientation to all participants about steps to be follow like:   stay at home, do not receive visitors, use of gloves and masks, we contacted relatives even if they don’t live with the participant and provided written information about the virus symptoms and instructions of what they must do.

The following services were provided to prepare the elderly for the quarantine:  distributed disinfectant, masks and gloves to the cook and two employees who distributed the meals.  Groceries were also distributed so that the elderly could have something to eat as many stores are closed and/or some participants do not have transportation. 

Up to this date, all 50 participants are safe and following instructions at their homes. We expect to be able to provide them with masks, gloves, cleaning and disinfectant articles which are necessary during the next weeks until this difficult period finish.  

Our administrative personal is aware of the elderly needs, precaution to be taken and are doing some remote follow up. We appreciate the support of GG and the donors during this new situation.

The distribution of the elderly meals to 50 participants of Proyecto La Nueva Esperanza continued during Saturdays and Sundays. We distributed 1,357 healthy meals. Our driver and a volunteer have been doing this task and the participants told them how pleased they are with this service.

Some other activities during this period were:

Basic need and clothing distribution were done with a University of Puerto Rico, Aguadilla Campus students.    We identified seven elders who were in need of goods and we were able to provide them. Some of our participants received paint bucketsbecausewe found that their houses paint was in bad condition. During Christmas our participants received a cordless COB-light switch so they can be in a safety environment during the night, especially if for some reason our community is without the electric power. With the recent January earthquakes our island was without power for several days and the gift was very useful.

Our nurse visited 46 of our participants to follow up their health as they have different conditions and provided hygiene and nutrition orientations.

Two elders were living in infrahuman conditions, the homes in very bad condition, our organization and 16 volunteers cleaned the houses.  There are some other houses to receive similar attention in the future.  We continue with the house reconstruction of participants and elders from the community who were affected by hurricaine Maria,  

Proyecto La Nueva Esperanza provided transportation to medical appointments and governmental agencies to 19 elders. We also were able to get documents like medical prescriptions and laboratory reports for them.

We referred four participants to Senior Center so they can receive a meal from Monday to Friday and a housekeeper. Our housekeeper visited ten participants to clean their homes.  

 Services provided have been possible thanks to our donors.