Renae Muscatell is standing outside in a Hannaford Supermarket parking lot in Bangor, Maine. The temperature is in the upper 30s, but with the windchill, it's much colder. It's November, which means it's time for the annual Turkey Drive.

At Avenue CDC in Houston, Texas, as in other places across the United states, everything changed overnight. As COVID-19 spread, employees went from working in an office to working at home, from building strong homes and communities to feeding those communities, too.

When she first started working as a homebuying educator in 2006, "it was a buyer's boom," says Gabriela Luna, now an educator and housing counselor at Tejano Center for Community Concerns in Houston, Texas. "Everyone was buying. There was so much support from all banks."
 

Elizabeth Alonzo-Villarreal works with a staff of eight at NeighborWorks Laredo, where she serves as CEO. But together, the staff helps about 1,000 others each year. So when the staff switched from working in a central office to working from home at the start of COVID-19, the organization utilized grants from NeighborWorks America to help things run more smoothly as they continued to provide homebuyer education, financial capability training and foreclosure prevention counseling.

Training isn't just a way to keep certifications current; it's a way to keep knowledge current. And as current events continue to create moving targets for affordable housing and community development professionals – with eviction moratoriums, unemployment, rental relief, and a kaleidoscope of grants and programs – housing counselors, educators and trainers need to keep up.

NeighborWorks Week this year looks different than usual. For many network organizations, the week dedicated to service and community celebration went virtual, as community residents remained physically distant from one another due to COVID-19. Communities turned their attentions to social justice, while at the same time, focusing on community building and community connection. Some organizations postponed activities. Others followed through with planned events. 

Foundation Communities' (FC) Supper Clubs in Austin, Texas, provide a host of opportunities, says Meghan Hein, community building volunteer coordinator. The dinners, cooked by volunteer groups that range from churches to businesses to book clubs, help residents in FC's affordable housing get warm, healthy meals and stretch their food budgets. With residents and volunteers dining together, there's also a chance to meet other people, talk, and build relationships with the Austin community.

Some tax preparers call it "the big money moment." They're talking about the time of year when consumers receive their tax refunds. The lump sum, especially if the individual qualifies for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), is often the largest payment they'll get all year long, says Molly Barackman-Eder, senior manager for financial capability at NeighborWorks America.