While online shopping is way up during the pandemic, donating to charities is way down.
Tracy Koskamp-Bergeron is executive director for the Alzheimer Society for the area from New Liskeard to Hearst.
Apart from donations, she says fundraising events account for $90,000 a year. But most of them can’t run this year.
Koskamp-Bergeron says that money lets her staff help Alzheimer sufferers and their caregivers.
“We have tons of things that we give them,” she remarks. “We have activation kits so that they have things to do. We have resources here in-office for them that we give at all times. I mean, even staff having a cell phone so that they can be connected to the client comes from our fundraising dollars.”
And she notes that the incidence of Alzheimer’s isn’t slowing down. It’s predicted that it will double by the year 2031.
“And with COVID-19 creating increased isolation for families and caregivers, that’s one of the major risk factors for developing Alzheimer’s Disease. So the top two are aging and social isolation.”