| Julie Fralich |
Pastor Linda Gard arrived at the office of the First Congregational Church on Thursday morning to find this sign had “sprouted on the front lawn.” The mystery sign was left as a thank-you from the Blake Street Housing Project and the Lewiston Housing Authority for the church’s food pantry and the work of New Gloucester resident Erin Pendexter Stone and her organization, NursingWise. As is often the case, behind a simple sign is a story, and here it is.
Erin developed NursingWise as a non-profit as part of her capstone project in her recent Master’s program. She was able to apply for and received a small grant from The Pollination Project, a national foundation that provides micro grants for social change.
In her experience as a nurse, Erin often saw people who entered a hospital in an emergency situation who were rapidly faced with critical health care decisions with no end-of-life plan in place, no health care proxies, and no advanced directives. Erin saw the need to bring those advanced care planning conversations to the community and make it an everyday conversation. And so NursingWise, a small volunteer organization, with no funds but a small group of committed volunteers, was formed.
One of the places where Erin had volunteered was at Blake Street Towers, a 96-unit low income apartment complex in Lewiston run by the Lewiston Housing Authority. Erin and her 6 nurse volunteers had previously provided help such as blood pressure checks, health information and food to residents before COVID 19.
Fast forward to March/April of 2020 and Erin found that community sessions on advanced care planning did not translate into the world of Zoom and online conference calls. But the need for food (and other supplies) for residents was great.
One of the little-known issues is that people with SNAP (food) benefits must go to the store in person and pick up their groceries; they cannot order online or over the phone. Many of the residents have comorbid conditions and are afraid to go to the store. Others may go for them, but the residents cannot use their SNAP benefits and must instead use their rent or medication money for food.
Erin and her nurse volunteers understood too well the basic need for food faced by many of the residents. But her non-profit could not qualify as a food distribution site. Enter the New Gloucester Food Pantry which could play that role and be considered a distribution site through Good Shepherd. And thus a partnership was formed.
Erin and her volunteers (on behalf of the New Gloucester food pantry) pick up food from Hannaford, food that would otherwise be thrown away, and take it to Blake Towers two to three times a month where they sort and pack the food for 40 residents. During the pandemic the food is distributed to residents by employees of the Lewiston Housing Authority.
In addition, the nurses have a recipe for a low-cost laundry soap and make quantities of it available for the residents.
The mission of NursingWise is to increase the nursing presence and impact in the community. According to Erin, “nurses have an enormous amount of wisdom and knowledge and spreading it into the community, is where it belongs.”
In addition to the sign on the front lawn of the church, there was a sign with signatures from grateful residents placed with the food from the food pantry.
The tagline of the grant program where Erin got her seed funding is “Uplifting selfless grassroots volunteerism for a kinder, more compassionate world.”
Erin and her volunteers easily fulfill this mission with their acts of kindness; and the gratitude expressed by the recipients – are an inspiration to all in this difficult time.
If you are interested in finding out more or helping Erin and her team, you can contact her at: erinpstonern@gmail.com.
