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A simple life afloat5/10/2023 “There was no specific category of people we were looking to help, no target group. “We had colleagues from the mountains to the coast reaching out for help,” Jones says. She listened to and read stories of people coping with unique and emotionally wrenching personal crises-while also facing furloughs because of pandemic-related job changes. Jones gets emotional when recalling how so many applications seeking assistance arrived from across the health system’s 25,000-plus employees, representing medical centers, clinics and affiliated practices. The requests to the EEF - and the stories that accompanied them - came by the hundreds. The decision was made to do this through the end of the fiscal year, by which time it was hoped some of the work restrictions would be eased. Working with Gary Gunderson, vice president of the Division of FaithHealth, they came up with a simple idea when “shelter in place” orders were issued: Use the fund to pay two months’ worth of rent or mortgage (shelter) for employees’ loss of income as they were required to take unpaid furloughs averaging one week per month for four months during a time when Wake Forest Baptist had to focus all of its attention on potential COVID-19 patients and forego many of its regular clinical services. One of the responsibilities of the support team is managing Wake Forest Baptist’s Employee Emergency Fund (EEF), which helps employees in financial distress due to an unexpected life circumstance that might prevent a mortgage, rent or car payment. Jones, chaplaincy program manager for staff support, was in a unique position to help along with fellow staff support team members, Bruce Johnson and Chris Ehrlich, as well as chaplains James Ingram and Corinne Causby. Maria Teresa Jones knew, as she learned about the potential effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, that it would likely devastate many of her fellow employees at Wake Forest Baptist Health.
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