Dear Martin’s family,
What an end to another difficult year! Like the rest of the world Martin’s is reacting to the news of the new COVID-19 variant, Omicron, with a mixture of pandemic fatigue and concern for the health of our guests, our community and really, the whole wide world!
If you read our last email to you, you know that we had our own COVID scare at Martin’s when one of our volunteers tested positive for COVID and we had to shut down all services while we quarantined. So far no one else has contracted the virus.
Many of you have been asking if and when we are going to reopen and if we are still asking for holiday cookies to be baked for our Xmas meal. In answer to your questions we have decided with heavy hearts and a desire to keep our guests and all of our volunteers safe, to not reopen until January 10th, 2022. (Our traditional winter break would have been 12/25 to 1/10.) This was a difficult decision, but we felt it was the safest and least confusing for our guests, since we are still currently closed due to our quarantine. Our hope is to serve a special celebratory meal sometime after we reopen… replete with cookies!
While, not too much is yet known about the new variant, a few things are certain; it spreads faster than previous variants and it is more likely to cause breakthrough cases in vaccinated people.
As we head into the week of Christmas, we are thinking mostly of the new year and how we can best fulfill our mission to feed people in 2022 and beyond.
We wish you all a healthy, safe and Happy New Year. We will enter 2022 holding space for those we lost over the last 2 years and filled with gratitude for each day. We know there is no guarantee it will be easy, but having the support of our loving community can ease our burdens.
“There is light in darkness, you just have to find it.” – bell hooks
Love,
The Pandemics