Carver COVID-19 Updates

The Carver Community Center is closed, and Carver’s after school programs are suspended until the school districts reopen their schools.

We are responding to the respiratory disease caused by a novel (new) coronavirus. The virus is named “SARS-CoV-2” and the disease it causes is named “coronavirus disease 2019” (“COVID-19”). WHO characterized COVID-19 as a pandemic. The United States declared the COVID-19 outbreak a national emergency.

We believe that Carver young people and their families will meet this new challenge with strength and a new sense of purpose.

We will be posting often on the Carver blog with information that may be helpful to our community (such as this blog post that offers breaking news about government benefits, free food distribution to students and families, and free internet services), as we seek to successfully manage our lives during these trying times.

Please click here to register for one of our 2020 summer programs.

Other Carver contact information is here.

The Connecticut Government website here and the CDC’s website here are good places to see updates on the health crisis. The City of Norwalk website has additional information for the community on measures that are being taken to limit the spread of coronavirus. 

Watch your email, the school district website and social media pages (Facebook and Twitter), as well as the City of Norwalk website for official local updates.

Connecticut residents can also call 2-1-1 for general inquiries about the virus.

Assistance to families during this new reality

Today begins a new reality for our Carver families.

Schools are closed, as the city tries to stem the coronavirus pandemic, and distance learning begins.

Your Health & Well Being

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a relief bill late Friday night aimed at containing the widening effects of the coronavirus. It's 110 pages long, so here are the key elements that may directly affect Carver families. The bill would: Guarantee sick leave for workers and their families affected by the coronavirus; Bolster food aid for needy families and seniors; Inject funds into state unemployment resources; and Guarantee free testing for people suspected of being infected. The bill still needs to still pass the Senate. 

Connecticut State regulators announced that utilities will not be able to shut off the water, electricity or natural gas of residential customers if they don’t pay their bills. The order followed Gov. Ned Lamont declaring a public health emergency in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Food Assistance

Beginning Monday, March 16, Norwalk Public Schools and Chartwells will provide free daily breakfast and lunch to all students age 18 and under. To help limit exposure and promote social distancing, meals will be delivered to a majority of students via school bus at bus stops.  A bus driver and a food service worker will stop at each regularly scheduled bus stop to deliver meals to students. Buses will operate on a two-hour delayed schedule. Meals will be delivered directly to special education students who receive door-to-door transportation.

You can also pick up meals outside of the schools you attend. Pickup time will be anytime between 12:30pm to 1:30pm daily. There will be no food drop-off at Side By Side Charter School. Side By Side students are welcome to pick up meals at Columbus Magnet School.

Students and their families are reminded to practice social distancing as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control, standing 6-feet apart from others when possible.

Local community organizations including Open Door and Person to Person offer families in need additional support.

Free Internet Access for Our Students & Families

Comcast is offering new families 60 days of Internet service for free. Here are other offerings as well in the face of this pandemic.

Altice USA is also offering access to high-speed broadband connectivity free of charge. For households with K-12 and/or college students who do not currently have home internet access, they can can access Altice Advantage 30 Mbps broadband services free of charge for 60 days.

In addition, service providers are joining the Keep Americans Connected Pledge recently announced by Federal Communications Commission. As part of the pledge, companies are committed for the next 60 days to not terminate broadband and voice service to any residential or small business customers because of their inability to pay their bills due to the disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic; to waive any late fees that any residential or small business customers incur because of their economic circumstances related to the coronavirus pandemic; and to open our WiFi hotspots to any American who needs them.

Going Forward

These are all commendable first steps. We expect and will continue to report on new ways that will be created to ease the hardships many of our children and their families may be experiencing. These hardships underscore the need for us all to be mindful of the needs of the most vulnerable among us.

A message to our youth and their families during this time of testing

You are used to testing, but not like this one. Your world, already so virtual, just became even more so. But you also need to appreciate that we are now witnessing Norwalk at its best.

Our mayor and superintendent of schools are confronting the dread and uncertainty of this global health crisis with purpose and decisive action. And just like those of us at Carver who know and deeply respect your abilities, our city leaders also have every confidence in your physical and moral courage to endure.

While we will all become impatient long before the all-clear signal, we are sure that Norwalk will serve as a national model for perseverance and civility. This invisible virus will make visible your true strengths. It will reveal the ways in which we all can and will work together to achieve the greatest good.

The farther we remove ourselves from each other in our effort to keep everyone safe, the more we will need each other. Mutual distancing need never become a mindset. Our way of living may be upended, but not our commitment to each other’s well being.

To mitigate we must also collaborate to allow our health-care system to cope and keep pace. You will cook at home, and you will study your school work at home, but we also know you will reach out more, at least on the phone and through email, online school platforms, and social media. You need to stay safe, but we are confident that as we all look back on this time of crisis, it will have been a time when you and all of Norwalk drew one another closer in a lasting way.

While disorienting in the present, we trust that this crisis will prove to be reorienting for our community. When this is all over, we will be all that much stronger, and our confidence in your many strengths and abilities will be all the more overflowing.

The Carver community is grateful for the years-long support of our good friends at Patriot Bank

CASPER and Jr. YDP are operating at the Carver Community Center today; After the Bell and Carver's other after school programs will not be operating today in Norwalk Public Schools

Norwalk Public Schools (NPS) will have a 2-hour early dismissal today for all students and staff, and then all the schools will be closed for a two-week period while the Distance Learning Plan is implemented.

Accordingly, Carver after school programs in all NPS schools will be suspended beginning today.

The CASPER and Junior Youth Development Program at the Carver Community Center will operate today, but then the after school programs at the Carver Community Center will be suspended until further notice.

See the full update as to what the school district is planning here at the NPS website.

The Connecticut Government website here and the CDC’s website here are good places to see updates on the health crisis. The City of Norwalk website has additional information for the community on measures that are being taken to limit the spread of coronavirus. 

Watch your email, the school district website and social media pages (Facebook and Twitter), as well as the City of Norwalk website for official local updates.

Connecticut residents can also call 2-1-1 for general inquiries about the virus.

You are invited to join Congressman Jim Himes for a telephone Town Hall today to discuss the Coronavirus: 10:00 A.M., Friday, March 13, 855-962-0953.

Fairfield County Bank joins many others in supporting the Carver community, and they've been supporting the Norwalk community 67 years before Carver was founded in 1938!