Every weekday morning for the past five years, you'd find Mattie Shandon in the kindergarten wing at Chestnut Grove Elementary School in Decatur, Alabama. A volunteer in the Foster Grandparent Program through Community Action Partnership of North Alabama (CAPNA), she would unpack backpacks, go over math problems and make sure her group of students knew the sound every letter of the alphabet was supposed to make.

NeighborWorks organizations have spent the past few weeks drafting new policies and communications in the wake of the COVID-19 virus and figuring out ways to share them quickly with their staff, their community, other agencies and one another.

As COVID-19 continues to spread, NeighborWorks network organizations continue to connect with community members and to take measures to try to ensure their safety. Here's a look at what organizations are doing in Vermont and Missouri.

As they check to make sure their residents are safe, NeighborWorks network organizations are finding other, concrete ways to deal with issues that accompany social distancing and economic well-being in the wake of the COVID-19 virus. In Maine, Avesta Housing is looking at ways to keep senior citizens connected, while in New York, Asian Americans for Equality Inc. (AAFE), is moving quickly to help businesses harmed by racism and xenophobia. 

Julie Saylor, library associate II and a tour guide for the exhibit Undesign the Redline, looked at the group gathered around her at Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library and asked her opening question: "How many of you know what redlining is?"

Hands shot up — lots of hands. 

At the café in the Poughkeepsie Underwear Factory, young people, ages 16 to 24, spend the summer cooking, baking and welcoming customers. Down the street and around the corner, they're helping out in a recording studio or at the shoe repair shop.

As we begin a new year — and a new decade — NeighborWorks America's network organizations are hard at work, doing what they do best. Some are exploring on new partnerships. Some are focusing on matching residents with new homes, with workforce training and with resources for staying sober or aging in place. Network leaders say they're finding inspiration in last year. And the lessons they've learned are serving as a roadmap for the year ahead.

Nwando Ofokansi just finished looking over a stack of college essays. It's for "her kids," she says. They may not be technically a part of her family tree, but by the time she's seen them through the Sure Track to College program in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, they feel like family. 

She's known some of them through the after-school College Ready Communities Program, run by NeighborWorks Blackstone River Valley (NWBRV), since they were in kindergarten. 

No matter the time of year or the area of the country, when disasters strike, lives are transformed. Every disaster is uniquely painful to the people it displaces. Hurricanes don't have much in common with wildfires; earthquakes don't resemble floods. But all disasters, natural and manmade, destroy homes and livelihoods. Another commonality: cookie cutter, one-size-fits-all approaches don't work to cope with them.

As we enter a new year, NeighborWorks America's network organizations examine the lessons they're carrying with them from 2019. Last time, we heard about a community project and the art of the ask. Today, regional representatives talk about forming partnerships, tiny houses, competing for new hires and the challenges of NOAH projects.