Summer Programming in a Pandemic

Normally summer programming in a city like Charlottesville means trips to spray parks, outdoor adventures, music and barbeques and ice cream trucks. As with most aspects of life now, summer programming looks different in 2020.

COVID-19 cases have continued to climb or remain steady in most of our service area this summer, so our programming remains at a standstill for the safety of Piedmont Housing staff, our residents and our partners.

Outdoor and Independent

While most programming remains canceled, we are happy to continue our annual summer reading challenge at Friendship Court. The Community Center at Friendship Court sees this as an ideal program for the pandemic as it requires independent reading and does not involve groups of people. The Free Book Bus has donated books for the effort and those who complete monthly reading challenges receive gift cards from Chaps Ice Cream.

Outdoor programming is also possible and a walking club meets Monday – Thursday, 10 a.m. – 11 a.m. Social distancing is required.

Senior Programming

Residents at our senior communities are especially susceptible to loneliness as their families, staff and our partners continue to social distance.

In place of the many engagement activities our community management team organizes monthly, we have created social distancing kits and started our Support Our Seniors (S.O.S.) program that encourages the larger community to send messages to those in our 55 and up communities.

A Focus on Food

Since the pandemic began, we have moved many of our resident services efforts from programming to ensuring food security for our residents. At Friendship Court, we continue to work with Charlottesville city schools and local businesses to provided meals and snacks.

At our senior communities, we continue to utilize our partnership with Blue Ridge Area Food Bank to provide bi-weekly food deliveries. We have also been fortunate to regular distributions from Trader Joe’s.