Hundreds of drivers lined up in their cars Sunday morning to get a $50 grocery gift card from a Fort Washington church, illustrating the economic impact the coronavirus pandemic has had on families.
Bumper to bumper, cars snaked into the parking lot of Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church to get one of 1,000 cards being handed out to help with the Thanksgiving holiday. The church has held community outreach events before the Christmas and Thanksgiving holidays for nearly 40 years, but since the pandemic began, it has been hosting such events much more frequently — before every major holiday — because so many people are facing financial struggles after their workplaces closed or their jobs were put on hold.
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“The need is obviously much greater and you can tell by the traffic,” said Denise Ross, a longtime volunteer of the holiday events who passed out gift cards on Sunday while wearing a mask and sweatshirt with “Jesus Saves” on it. “People are just very grateful. Not that they weren’t before, but in some cases you can see the look of just gratitude, just thankfulness.”
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More than a half-million people in the United States found jobs in October, pushing the unemployment rate down by 0.2 percentage points to 4.6 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But it remains more than 1 percent higher than in February 2020, the month before the pandemic was declared in the United States.
Ebenezer AME officials said the church has given away more than $600,000 in gift cards since the spring of last year while also providing meals and food boxes in partnership with the Prince George’s County government and local groups such as the World Central Kitchen. The charitable sum is especially notable because the church has not met in-person since the pandemic began, and its 8,000 members continue to meet virtually. Tithing is taking place online and with regularity, according to the church’s co-pastor.
“It’s because of the giving — the faithful giving — and the commitment and consistency of the Ebenezer AME Church family,” the Rev. Jo Ann Browning said. “I do believe it’s because this is what they know to do, this is what they’ve been taught to do and they see the tangible evidence, not just during the pandemic, but that’s been the history of the church. Ebenezer’s mission and ministry is always to be connected to the community and the needs of the community. We can’t do everything, but we can do something.”
Ebenezer AME, a historic African American church that began in the mid-1800s in Georgetown before it relocated to Fort Washington in 1983, recognized that giveaways needed to be held more frequently than just Thanksgiving and Christmas after church officials put on a gift card giveaway just after the pandemic began.
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“We first did it the first Easter of the pandemic … and at that time, not a lot of outreach had been done by most churches because it was so early in the pandemic,” said the Rev. Grainger Browning, the senior pastor of the church. “So we did the same thing as today — $50,000 worth of food gift cards, and we must have had 2,000 people lined up, and we didn’t know to use the parking lot. So they were literally lined up all the way back to Andrews Air Force Base, which is about five miles away.”
The experience taught church officials to take advantage of their large parking lot, just off Allentown Road, where on Sunday they directed cars into a drive-through queue that flowed around the church and into lots where volunteers handed drivers cards while security and police officers directed the cars out.
Some recipients were so grateful, Browning said, that they gave volunteers 50 or 75 cents back as their own contributions to the effort.
Among recipients on Sunday was Tanika Robinson, 42, and her fiance Omar Reed, 44, who picked up a card and headed straight to a grocery store to buy a turkey and fixings for Thanksgiving dinner.
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Reed, who worked for Marriott as a hotel utility steward responsible for equipment cleaning and maintenance, said he has been out of work for weeks: “They laid everybody off.”
“They shut everything down,” Robinson added.
“They told us we aren’t getting back to work until next year,” Reed continued. “They said they might call you next year. I’m like, ‘How are we going to make it from here to next year?’”
On top of the missing income, Reed said, is the continual fear to restart normal routines as the coronavirus continues to give him and family members anxiety despite being vaccinated. He said his son went back to school this fall and was infected with the coronavirus not long after.
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“Everybody’s hurt financially,” he said. “I still think it’s mental, too. They’ve not given the mental aspect enough attention.”
The gift card served as an emotional boost, he said, showing him they were not alone in their struggles and that many are behind them, providing support.
“It will be a blessing to the household and help out for a turkey for Thanksgiving,” Robinson said.
“And some desserts for Thanksgiving,” Reed added.