Coronavirus Update for our Habitat Hillsborough Volunteers

Coronavirus Update for our Habitat Hillsborough Volunteers

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A message from our Chief Development Officer, Richard Rogers

To our valued Volunteers,

There is no higher priority to our entire Habitat Hillsborough Family than the safety of our volunteers and employees. We are monitoring the news to stay on top of this evolving situation. According to the most recent information from the CDC, for most people, the immediate risk of being exposed to the virus that causes COVID-19 is thought to be low.

We want you to feel confident when volunteering with Habitat Hillsborough. As a result, we have enhanced some of our procedures in the interest of our volunteers’ and employees’ health and safety. We encourage all volunteers to visit https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/prevention-treatment.html to review steps to prevent illness.

Construction and ReStore Site Cleaning: We have enhanced our end of day cleaning procedures. Typically, we clean our hard hats with disinfectant prior to the start of each day. Now, we are expanding the use of disinfectant to include an end of day disinfectant prior to storing hard hats and tools for the evening and providing it again in the morning for our volunteers to use prior to use. There will also be antibacterial soap and sanitizer available when volunteering. If volunteers have pocket sanitizer, we ask that they bring it in case supplies continue to run low. We have limited work gloves and are therefore encouraging volunteers to bring their own.

Volunteer Notification while Volunteering: Our site supervisors and our ReStore supervisors will inform all volunteers that if they don’t feel well to not feel bad about leaving their volunteer post after letting the onsite Habitat personnel know they are not well.

Any volunteers who are running a fever within 24 hours prior to the volunteer shift should call or email our volunteer coordinator that you are unable to come due to having a fever. Callie can be reached at volunteers@habitathillsborough.org or by calling (813) 239-2242 and selecting the volunteer department.

If you are unable to work your scheduled volunteer shift because of illness, when you let Callie know of your absence, please provide her with days you would be available and she can reschedule you. We are always in need of volunteers on weekdays.

If any of the following is true, we encourage you not to register for volunteer service at this time:
  • Have you traveled out of the country last 14 days?
  • Do you live or come in contact regularly with the elderly or someone who has a serious chronic medical condition?
  • Have you come in contact with someone who has the Novel Corona Virus (COVID-19)?

Rest assured, we are monitoring this developing situation closely. We are prepared to navigate through these challenging circumstances with your safety and confidence as a priority.

We look forward to seeing you on site soon.

Richard Rogers
Chief Development Officer
(a.k.a. Mr. Rogers, wishing you a beautiful day in the neighborhood.)